May 26, 2026
Therapy? No, that’s a job interview
The worst job interview I ever had
A startup asked for trauma, then sent a cold rejection — and the internet is horrified
TLDR: A founder-level job interview at a mental health startup reportedly turned into a deeply personal trauma session before ending in a quick rejection. Commenters were appalled, with many saying the candidate escaped a toxic workplace and others joking the whole thing sounded too bizarre to be real.
What was supposed to be a job interview turned into what commenters are calling a full-on "unsolicited psych evaluation". The writer says a small mental health startup skipped the usual skills test and instead spent about 90 minutes asking deeply personal questions about the hardest day of their life, failed relationships, and family struggles — only to reject them with a one-line email the next day. And yes, the community absolutely pounced.
The strongest reaction was basically: you dodged a missile, not a bullet. One commenter, drawing on years around mental health professionals, bluntly said many in that world are "Doctor, heal thyself" types and told the writer to be grateful it ended there. Another went even further, jokingly asking whether this was even a real company or just "some weirdo pretending to be a business for fun" — which pretty much captures the thread's stunned disbelief. The hottest practical take came from people insisting the interview should have been ended on the spot, with one commenter scripting the perfect polite walkout.
There was also some lighter chaos amid the outrage. One reader got completely distracted by the phrase "cracked engineer", launching a mini side quest over whether that wording even makes sense. So while the story itself hit a nerve about workplace boundaries and emotional manipulation, the comments turned it into a mix of horror show, coping humor, and crowd-sourced career advice: if a job asks for your trauma before your résumé skills, close the laptop.
Key Points
- •The article recounts a job interview for a founding engineer role at a small mental health startup.
- •After an initial informational interview, the candidate was scheduled for a roughly 90-minute nontechnical culture-fit interview.
- •The second interview focused on highly personal questions about the candidate’s hardest life experiences and major personal challenges.
- •No technical assessment had taken place before the personal culture-fit interview.
- •The candidate received a short rejection email about 24 hours later and says the experience left them feeling emotionally drained and exposed.