# The Recruiter Told Him the Truth About the Five-Year Bond — and He Wasn’t Even Applying

**[TRUE STORY]** — by Candidate · via r/interviews

He trained in sterile processing — the work of cleaning, disinfecting and sterilising surgical instruments. By the end of the course the warnings had already reached him: almost every posting wanted one to two years of experience, and nobody was going to give it to a graduate.

Then a cousin’s friend, a sales rep, swore he could get him in. In the end the rep never spoke to anyone at the hospital; he simply submitted an application under the candidate’s name to one of its training programmes. A Zoom interview was scheduled, two weeks out.

The recruiter opened on Zoom, then ended the call and rang his phone directly. Over the next twenty minutes she described the system she had been part of elsewhere: large hospital systems run their own training programmes, take people with little experience, pay for the qualification, and hold them to a multi-year commitment while paying trainee wages. And, she said, shortly before that commitment comes due, many of them are let go anyway — replaced by the next intake, at the bottom of the ladder and the bottom of the scale.

She said she found it sickening. She apologised that it was the reality of the field.

He had not wanted the job. His cousin had pushed; the rep had been performing. But he walked away with something more useful than an offer: a recruiter describing the river he was about to wade into, from the bank, without being asked.

*Source: [r/interviews · viral post](https://www.reddit.com/r/interviews/comments/1x4gr9g/had_a_surprisingly_honest_interview_about_the/)*
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