Corporate Dating

Let’s be real: job hunting in 2025 is basically online dating with fewer happy endings and more “we regret to inform you” emails. You make a profile (a.k.a. your resume), upload your most flattering work history from 2016 when you were still optimistic, and hope someone swipes right on your LinkedIn. You carefully craft the perfect opener: “Dear Hiring Manager, I was excited to see your posting…” — which, if translated into dating terms, is basically, “Hey, saw your profile. You seem fun. I think we’d be great together.”

First comes the “getting to know you” chat. This is the recruiter call — that 17-minute, awkward first coffee date where you both already know if it’s a no, but you still smile and nod because manners. They ask what you’re “looking for” (salary expectations), you ask if they “value long-term relationships” (translation: do you lay people off after 90 days?), and you both end with that polite, “Let’s see where this goes,” knowing full well one of you will ghost the other.

Then you get invited to the first real date — the interview. Except in corporate dating, one date is never enough. No, you now enter a five-to-seven-date courtship involving the whole “family”: HR (the overprotective parent), your potential boss (the mysterious older sibling), and a random person from another department who has no idea why they’re there but is “part of the process.” Each one asks the same questions in slightly different ways: “Tell me about yourself” (prove you’re not crazy), “How do you handle conflict?” (are you secretly crazy?), and “Where do you see yourself in five years?” (please say ‘with you,’ even though we both know you’ll be ghosted in two).

Corporate dating also has the test. In romance, it’s meeting the friends. In hiring, it’s the homework assignment. You spend six unpaid hours making a presentation, solving a problem, or role-playing a scenario — the workplace equivalent of planning a full weekend getaway to prove you’re “serious about the relationship.”

And then… the waiting. Oh, the waiting. In dating, they say, “I’ll text you!” and then vanish. In hiring, they say, “We’ll be in touch soon!” and then you hear nothing for three weeks until a rejection email arrives at 3:04 a.m., written in a tone that’s somehow both robotic and smug. Or worse, they disappear entirely, leaving you to wonder if they died, moved, or just “found someone else” (internally promoted, “better culture fit,” blah blah).

Sometimes, though, you do get the yes. You start the job and discover that, much like dating, people exaggerate on their profiles. “We’re a family” actually means “we fight a lot but can’t leave because rent’s too high.” “We value work-life balance” translates to “you can have a life… after you finish these weekend reports.” And “We’re looking for someone who can hit the ground running” really means “we have no training program — good luck, champ.”

So yes, corporate hiring is dating — only with worse snacks, more forms, and a 401(k) you might never vest in. At least in dating, you can order dessert to make the night worth it. In hiring? You just get another Outlook invite titled “Round 4: Behavioral Interview.”

And yet… we keep showing up. Because somewhere out there is the one — the company that means what it says, treats you like a human, and doesn’t make you alphabetize your spice rack just to cope between interviews.

Until then? Swipe, apply, repeat.