r/recruitinghell rules, stats, and what to post

This community is a place to tell stories about the hiring process going wrong. The description asks for tales of recruiters who made you send a resume and then made you fill out the same details on their website, or candidates who sent cover letters that just scream for a job in capital letters. It is a venting and story sharing room, run by volunteer moderators, where people compare notes on the absurd parts of recruiting from both sides, the job seeker side and the recruiter side. The rules make clear it is not a marketplace, not a place to find people for jobs, and not a place to pitch anything.

The rule that decides everything for a founder is “No Spam”, because pitching a product or service, or even subtly steering the conversation toward what your product does, gets you banned rather than just moderated. “No AI Slop.” matters just as much, since AI written posts and even posts that AI was used to tidy up get removed, and the mods say plainly that people come to Reddit to talk to other people, not robots. “No direct links to a job” blocks linking to recruiting sites like LinkedIn or any job ad, so you cannot share the listing you want to discuss. “Do not post personal information” means you must block out names, emails, phone numbers, and social handles before you post anything, though company names are allowed. “Be civil.” sets the tone, because you can mock a broken hiring process but not a person's skills or abilities. “Don't go off topic” removes low-effort posts and common reposts, and “Be respectful of the volunteer mods.” reminds you that arguing with a removal gets you shown the door.

A good post here is a true story told in your own words about a bad experience with hiring or recruiting, with every name, email, and phone number blocked out. If you are a founder or marketer, the honest move is to leave your product at the door entirely, because even subtle steering toward what you sell is spam under the rules. What you can do is participate as a person, share what you saw on your own side of the hiring table, and join conversations where your experience is genuinely relevant. If you have a war story from building a company, like a candidate experience you find ridiculous, told as plain honest observation with no product mentioned, that fits the room. Keep it specific, keep it human, and never post AI polished text.

The fastest way out of this community is pitching. Any attempt to sell a product or service, or to seek people for jobs, counts as spam and gets you banned, and the rules call out the sneaky version too, where you start subtly guiding the conversation toward what your product provides. Direct links to job ads or recruiting websites are removed. AI written posts, AI images, and even posts that AI just tidied up get taken down, and the moderators would much rather read your own words. Personal names, emails, phone numbers, social media handles, and pictures must be blocked out of everything you post. Off topic posts are removed, including minor typos as the whole point of a post, common reposts, duplicates, and low effort posts. Personal attacks on someone's skills or abilities, hate speech of any kind, and rudeness toward the volunteer moderators all lead to discipline or bans. If a mod asks you to tone something down, pushing back harder is the quickest exit.

The “No AI Slop.” rule here is one of the strictest I have seen, because it covers posts that AI merely tidied up, so my advice is simple, write it yourself even if the grammar is rough. I also like that the rules allow company names while blocking personal info, which keeps stories honest without doxxing anyone. This is a room built on shared frustration, so the only way in is to bring a real story and nothing to sell.