Rejected, but make it human

Imagine landing a new job, flying halfway across the world for a two-week onboarding, and discovering your employer has arranged accommodation for you.How thoughtful.Except your accommodation is a tent. Inside the office. Alongside your new colleagues. With one shared bathroom.In this bonus episode, Bri shares an extraordinary story passed along by a friend, while Annabell struggles to believe that anyone could possibly consider this an acceptable welcome to a new job.We discuss corporate culture taken to absurd extremes, personal boundaries, the importance of privacy, and why some jobs might genuinely be worse than unemployment.And, naturally, Bri's skincare routine.Would you stay, book yourself a hotel, or get straight back on the plane?Join the conversation on Instagram @morecloselyalignedpod or share your own workplace horror stories at www.morecloselyalignedpod.com.

Four interviews arranged in 48 hours. Is it safe to get excited?In Episode 6 of More Closely Aligned, Annabell and Bri ask whether transferable skills are still getting a fair hearing when employers seem to want someone who has already done the exact same job.Annabell has seen the same vacancy advertised three times, with an unchanged job description. It brings to mind a German expression: the egg-laying wool milk pig. Apparently, being a unicorn is no longer quite ambitious enough.Then the conversation takes a hopeful turn. Bri recounts a sudden run of interview invitations across unfamiliar industries, while Annabell shares promising conversations of her own. Neither has an offer in this recording. Both have reasons to feel excited, and a little nervous about feeling excited.We talk about:• Why we disagree on the advice to apply when you meet 60% of a job description.• Exact experience, transferable skills and the search for the mythical perfect candidate.• Our concerns about AI and rigid screening, from the applicant’s side of the process.• The energy that comes from an opportunity to learn something new.• Our glimmers: a community concert in Geneva and tulip bulbs planted for next spring.Listen to Hope Springs. Follow More Closely Aligned on Spotify or Apple Podcasts for new main episodes every two weeks, with bonuses in between.Has an employer taken a chance on your transferable skills? Or asked for a creature that does not exist? Share your story at https://www.morecloselyalignedpod.com/. We’ll anonymise identifying details before sharing a story on the podcast.Instagram: @morecloselyalignedpod

Ghosting goes both ways. Annabell and Bri talk about candidates disappearing from interviews, employers leaving applicants without updates, and zombie applications that crawl back months later to haunt you.They also reflect on why respectful communication matters beyond a single job opportunity, and share some favourite Halloween traditions, from village bone hunts and pumpkin pie to zombie gingerbread.Have a job-search ghosting story of your own? Share it at morecloselyalignedpod.com or on Instagram at @morecloselyalignedpod.Happy Halloween!

“There will definitely be another interview.” Four weeks later, still waiting...In Episode 5 of More Closely Aligned, Annabell and Bri compare two very different candidate experiences: a rejection email that actually feels considerate, and an encouraging interview followed by a month of silence.Bri finally gets an answer after four interviews and almost two months of waiting. Meanwhile, both hosts are back in the same recruitment process, comparing notes and quietly imagining the possibility of becoming colleagues again. “Stay tuned,” says the recruiter. We would love to.We talk about:·      What made one rejection email feel thoughtful, even without an interview.·      The gap between an enthusiastic interview goodbye and the update that never comes.·      How application requirements shape our own job searches in Switzerland.·      Familiar vacancies returning in disguise. Fake moustache optional.·      Our glimmers: Halloween plans, following a passion and branded cookies at 4 a.m.Resources from the rejection email:These are the links included in the thoughtful rejection email Bri discusses:⁠Talently.ai⁠ — AI interview practice. Its mock-interview page offers a free way to start rehearsing with feedback.⁠Go straight to the mock interview page⁠⁠Levels.fyi⁠ — Compensation data to help sense-check pay by role, company and location.⁠Teal⁠ — Tools to compare your CV with a job description and refine relevant keywords.⁠Jobscan⁠ — CV and job-description comparisons, with feedback on skills and keywords relevant to applicant-tracking systems.New here? You can start with this episode.For more on recruitment limbo, listen next:⁠Episode 3 — The job you never had⁠Follow More Closely Aligned on Spotify or Apple Podcasts for new main episodes every two weeks, with bonus episodes in between.Have a story of your own? Share it through our website. We’ll anonymise identifying details before sharing it onthe podcast.Follow us on Instagram: @morecloselyalignedpod

With just a week’s notice, Annabell was invited to an in-person interview in a neighbouring country. To arrive on time, she had to fly—and pay for the ticket upfront.Then came the paperwork: a legacy expense spreadsheet from 2014, with no way to handle costs in foreign currencies. The reimbursement did arrive, but only two months later.Bri and Annabell talk about the hidden costs candidates can carry, the small details that shape the candidate experience, and the unusual admin stories that become podcast material.

Is the job market genuinely getting harder—or does unemployment simply make everything feel harder?In this episode, we step back from our own increasingly unhinged application spreadsheets and look at what the Geneva numbers actually say.In July 2026, Geneva’s registered unemployment rate was 5.1%. At the same time, the number of registered unemployed people had risen from 9,045 in July 2023 to 12,876 in July 2026—an increase of roughly 42%.Those figures describe two different things: 5.1% is the proportion of the labour force currently registered as unemployed, while 42% is how much the number of registered unemployed people has grown over three years. The average elapsed duration of unemployment has also increased to 213 days—just over seven months.So no: if finding work feels more difficult right now, it isn’t necessarily a reflection of your value, experience or effort.We talk about what the data means, how to manage the inevitable freak-outs, why sending more applications may no longer be the answer, and our attempts to locate the mysterious “hidden job market.” There is also Eckhart Tolle, an unpopular opinion about musicals and a dangerously exciting kitchen torch.Because two things can be true at once: the market can be difficult, and you can still have an enormous amount to offer.Follow us on Instagram: @morecloselyalignedpodShare your story: www.morecloselyalignedpod.com

How long do you wait for an employer before you decide the answer for them?Years ago, while supporting the recruitment of a very senior hire, Bri watched one of the final candidates do something unforgettable. After months of patchy communication, she sent an email that was calm, impeccably polite and devastatingly clear: the silence was disrespectful, so she was withdrawing her application.Bri, then in her early twenties, had one thought: one day, I want to be important enough to do that.Now, several months into a recruitment process and weeks of silence, she has a question: is she finally boss bitch enough to pull it off?In this bonus episode, Annabell and Bri talk about:• Why applying for a job makes you vulnerable at every level• The power (and privilege!) of walking away• Whether that kind of confidence lands differently in Switzerland and the US• The email every jobseeker has drafted in their headMore Closely Aligned is made by unemployed people, for unemployed people.Follow us on Instagram at @morecloselyalignedpod and share your own story at www.morecloselyalignedpod.com.Good luck out there!

How do you grieve a job you never actually had?After four interviews, six weeks of silence and far too much time imagining the commute, the projects and the phone call announcing the good news, Bri is trying to let go of a future that had already begun to feel real. Meanwhile, Annabell recounts flying to another country for a one-day interview, only to find herself back at square one a week later.In Episode 3, we talk about the peculiar heartbreak of losing an imagined future, the exhausting contradiction of protecting yourself while still appearing enthusiastic, and the emotional whiplash of receiving a promising recruiter call—with Asian dressing on your hands and a screaming toddler under your arm—two days after crying over a rejection.We also mark 100 applications with precisely zero fireworks, experiment with an AI-powered job-search assistant and share the glimmers keeping us going.Have a job-search story of your own? Share it with us at morecloselyalignedpod.com.

Sometimes, when the job search feels particularly bleak, the universe sends you a message. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always arrive in the form you might expect.In this very short bonus episode, Annabell shares a small but exquisitely timed moment that felt either like a sign, a cosmic joke, or both. Because when you’re looking for work, apparently even the universe has thoughts.Have you ever received a “sign” at exactly the right (or wrong) moment? Tell us your story at morecloselyalignedpod.com.

Rejection is part of the job search. Feeling as though the message was written by a robot—or by someone pretending to be your best friend—doesn’t have to be.In Episode 2, Annabell and Bri examine the strange, careless and occasionally surreal ways companies reject candidates: awkwardly familiar language, unfortunate timing, generic templates and messages that somehow manage to say both too much and nothing at all. They ask what candidates are actually owed after investing their time, energy and hope in a recruitment process—and why a little clarity, empathy and basic humanity can make such a difference.Plus: an update from the job-search trenches, the week’s optimism levels and a few glimmers to keep things moving.More Closely Aligned is a podcast made by unemployed people, for unemployed people—and anyone who has ever received that email.