Tiktok sent me an interview invitation that made me very excited. My experience matched the posted job requirements, and my first two interview rounds went very well, so I felt confident.

However, my excitement plummeted after the interview, within less than 24 hours. I discovered the result before it was communicated to me from Tiktok – that I had failed.

This made me wonder if the posted jobs were already set up for someone else. In that case, why would they give other candidates hope of being successful? That felt unfair.

At first, I thought I shouldn’t be upset if there was a possibility that these positions were meant for TikTok internal applicants only. However, I found that these roles were actually set up for people that the hiring managers knew personally, such as former friends or coworkers.

This information was revealed to me accidentally. I just happened to know the hiring manager's friends and found out from them that they were told to just apply for the position, after which they would get fake interviews and then be given the job without any significant evaluation.

This broke my heart because I was so hopeful, excited, and prepared for the interview for this job. I felt very qualified after spending the last five years developing skills that matched the job description.

These represent bad hiring practices that are not based on merit but simply on favoritism.

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