🪤 Corporate Catfish Season

This is why your latest job offer might smell like a Tinder bio with a filter.

So, you just landed a “dream job” at a “fast-paced, collaborative” company with “unlimited PTO,” a Slack channel for memes, and leadership that “really cares.” You show up, bright-eyed and caffeinated, only to find out your manager has the emotional range of a traffic cone, your team communicates exclusively in passive-aggressive emails, and “unlimited PTO” actually means “you can ask... but Karen in HR will log it.”

Congrats, you’ve been corporate catfished.

This isn’t a niche problem anymore—it’s a pandemic. Employers are fluffing up job descriptions like they’re writing romantic comedy scripts: “We’re looking for a creative rockstar!” Translation: “We’re going to exploit your labor, ignore your emails, and pay you in exposure (and maybe a stress ball).”

It’s no wonder Gen Z is ghosting harder than Casper. A recent CV Genius survey revealed that one in three Gen Z workers have “career catfished” companies right back—accepting job offers and never showing up. You corporate-baited them with bean bags and bar carts, and they disappeared like a dad on stepping out for cigarettes. Fair’s fair.

Let’s be honest: companies now market themselves to candidates like they’re on Love Island. “Fun team environment,” “casual Fridays,” “wellness initiatives.” You walk in expecting kombucha on tap and team yoga, and instead you're handed a broken laptop, a 300-slide onboarding deck, and Todd in accounting breathing heavily through Zoom.

Here’s a wild idea—maybe stop pretending your office is a tech-enabled utopia with a ping-pong table and “rad vibes” when in reality it’s just a beige prison with slightly better coffee.

Candidates have caught on. They’re asking real questions in interviews like, “What’s your turnover rate?” and “Is burnout considered a KPI here?” And when they sense something’s off—like a vibe shift between the job post and the actual job—they’re vanishing before the first-day selfie.

Corporate America, listen up: you don’t need to be perfect. You just need to be honest. If your culture’s a bit chaotic but the work is solid, say that. If your CEO is a little unhinged but gives good bonuses, own it. If your office still smells like 2009 sadness and Tuna Fish Lean Cuisines, maybe just mention it.

Because in this era of mutual catfishing, trust is the new signing bonus.

And if you keep lying about your vibe? Don’t be surprised when your next “rockstar” employee pulls a disappearing act faster than your last TikTok intern.