I’ve been without steady employment for over a year now. I’ve only been able to get one temporary job that lasted for a few months, but since then, nothing. I have a degree, years of experience in my field, and certifications. Nobody wants me. I recently applied for a job that I’m very qualified for, that my friend’s dad works at. They sent me an auto reject. If having all the qualifications asked for and then some, years of experience, a degree, certifications, AND a referral isn’t enough, then what the fuck is?
Most recently, I had an absolute unicorn job I interviewed for. It was in my area, transit distance, looking for my level of experience, and since it had an intangible product, was relatively unaffected by the tariffs and shit. I talked to two recruiters for screening, both said I’m an excellent fit. I interviewed two team members, they liked me so much, they advanced me to the final round minutes after the interview. I did the final interview, and it went quite well. I was given an update by the recruiter two days after, there’s just one person left to interview, it’s just between me and that person, and the two guys I interviewed first liked me better, but it’s just down to the hiring manager’s choice. And then I got rejected, because the other guy had more experience than me. WHY THE FUCK DID YOU WASTE MY TIME AND LEAD ME ON LIKE THAT IF YOU WERE JUST GOING TO GO BY YEARS OF EXPERIENCE?
My parents also paid for a career counselor for me, and all she could say was that I seem to be doing nothing wrong, and I just need to wait for an offer to come through. Gee, thanks. That was totally worth $200.
I even apply for the absolutely shittiest of places, paying well under what I’m looking for, but not even they’ll take me. How the fuck am I supposed to get a job if no one wants to hire anymore?
I was recently let go from my IT job because my new boss is an ass and said they didn’t need a programming person anymore and they were doing some “reorganization” (I was in the middle of a difficult script they assigned me to do and never finished, lol, they are going to struggle, and of course, this is bullshit and I suspect other reasons for my early termination) after gaslighting me and telling me I don’t have to worry about my losing my job and that they would find work for me in hardware. Everything they ever told me was a lie, and it didn’t take even a month for them to betray me on everything they said. Absolute sociopath. Worked there for over two years. I didn’t realize how much the old boss liked me and worked hard to fight back against higher ups snuffing out our team.
I am getting out of the IT industry and working towards getting my CDL so I can work with my spouse, doing month straight work and a week off, and pay off our debts and save for me to go back to college for electrical engineering. My autistic ass probably can’t get a job in IT because I am too smart in the industry that I threaten the incompetent managers and higher techs.
Finding a job fucking sucks
If the job at your friends dads place is still open the right way to do these is to have the person that works there send the resume to HR. you go through the automated systems at the end of the process not the beginning
Also like I posted in the other thread do your resume in markdown and make sure it properly parses in ATS systems
Are you in tech? I hear that whole sector is basically flooded (with job seekers) right now, and the white collar job market as a whole is insanely competitive as well. Even niche positions are getting dozens of qualified applicants.
It sucks, but it sounds like you are a professional and know what you’re doing. And if so, the only real answer is to keep searching and sending tailored applications, until you run out of leads in your area every single day.
I’m speaking from experience, laid off recently and it took 6 months before getting an offer with 20% less pay and reduced responsibility.
I know talented aerospace engineers that didn’t get an offer out of school for a full year in a hot market. It’s just shit now, but you just gotta keep going. It always seems hopeless until you finally get that job offer.
Worst case scenario, I know warehouse/forklift work pays decently and are always hiring. Anything to pay the bills and let you keep searching while the market heats back up.
Your university might also have career services resources for alumni if you want 2nd opinions on resume. Just keep the long march going, comrade.
I unfortunately think the next era requires job seeker to reach out to hiring managers again. Like if you use LinkedIn find relevant people at the company to send your resume to with a nice right up. HR AI has been crap for years and we all know it
For one temp job they asked me what I was doing in the year I was unemployed and I told them i had to take care of a family member who passed and now im trying to get back into the workforce. I also said that within that timeframe i was doing gig economy work every now and then so that I could earn money but closer to home so I could care for the family member. Just try your best to make it all up, amazon, uber, you could even go as far to say you’ve been volunteering and they might not even question it.
I don’t think people want to question a death of a family member especially if you can pass it off as believable. Nobody wants to question whether it’s truth or not and usually the automatic response is “im really sorry to hear that.”
I’m not actually doing nothing, I am studying for certs, and I’m actually getting them, and can prove it by the dates I received them, but apparently, that’s not enough…
I dunno, i couldn’t after doing applying as my job for 2 years and it seems even worse now
hustle and grind playa and one day the invisible hand of the market will magically give you 10 million dollars /s
honestly the only thing i can think of is get your resume matched with whatever shitfest AI tooling recruiters use these days. having a resume that an AI can pick apart is the first step towards not getting auto rejected.
and don’t give up. as hard and shitty as it is most job listings nowadays are just traps. they already have a candidate in mind they just make the posting out of obligation, they list unnecessary qualifications (from your post you seem like you only applied to jobs that you match the job listing, don’t do that apply even if you don’t check all the tickboxes), the position got filled and the lazy bastard forgot to remove it and my favourite just straight up lying.
and check out the recruiter YouTube channels they got good tips for today’s market (even though most of them are selling bullshit seminars like how to achieve job freedom blah blah blah).
Believe me, I apply for all the stuff, unless it’s like, 10 more years of experience than what I have.
I don’t get angry when I get an auto rejection email, then I re read the description and think “Ah, OK, it makes sense that I got auto rejected there”, which happens often.
I’ve had an idea of, when I see an auto reject email of something I’m well qualified for, to email them to let them know their ATS is broken to manipulate them into giving me feedback, similar to that tip of getting help from reddit by making an alt account and giving an intentionally wrong answer so they feel the need to correct them.
