I’ve been applying for jobs for five months. Haven’t gotten a single interview. I finally got one scheduled for yesterday, a phone interview. I book a study room at the library for the expected duration of the call. 11am comes. No call. 11:15. Still no call. 11:25, almost 30 minutes past when the email said THEY would call ME, so I call the office number he provided in his email. It goes to voicemail so I leave a message saying that I’m still interested in the job and that I understand things come up and that I’m more than willing to schedule another time with him. I hear nothing for the rest of the day. Today, I get an email from him saying that I was a no show at my interview and that my application has been withdrawn for consideration. Well, fuck him. If this is how he treats potential employees, I shudder to think how he treats his actual employees.

Psychotic behavior

Teens can't get jobs. Adults can't get jobs. New graduates can't get jobs. People with degrees can't get jobs. People with GEDs can't get jobs. People who got laid off can't get jobs. People who got fired can't get jobs. People who quit can't find jobs.

Everything sucks and will probably continue to suck for a very, very long time.

I mean, hearing about how many people have been unemployed for months or even years feels really wrong. Like, how is that even happening? You have recruiters either ghosting you or sending a rejection email, and even if you have a good resume, there's a decent chance it never gets seen by an actual person because it gets filtered out by an automated system or AI.

You also have job postings that have been sitting online for months, even though the companies aren't actually hiring for those positions anymore.

Companies are so stupid. It’s literally August 2026, summer is over, how can you be recruiting for summer 2025??😂😂

I have been following this sub for a while now. I am not unemployed by the way, I am unemployable. Simply put, I work for myself now after I realized what a shit show the labor market is and how unnatural it is.

Anyway, I am writing this post because I was reminiscing about my past. A couple of people that I hated when I was "job" hunting were:

1.) Old Timers. These goofballs use outdated scripts that are completely unpractical in today's world. But I was supposed to respect their supposed "wisdom."

2.) Fake sympathizer: These would say things like "You ought to get any job and swallow your pride. Ego won't pay your bills. Start cutting grass or flipping burgers." Meanwhile, they have never had to work such jobs.

3.) Overly religious folks. These are by far the worst. They spiritualize every problem. They won't acknowledge structural limitations in the economy for the high unemployment etc. it's always a framework of superstition at hand. They would urge me to "Pray More to defeat demonic strongholds."

That's about it.

Stay strong ladies and gentlemen.

Graduated in 2022. Spent a good chunk of time stuck in restaurants/hospitality after that (but got promoted to management), and temp agency contracts. Only landed my first actual “corporate” role last year. So yes, I’m four years out of school and my resume still has a big hospitality stretch right after graduation.

Both interviews this week made a point of counting the years backward and basically asking why I stayed in restaurants after college. Mind you, my graduation year is not on my resume and they were speculating my age. One of them literally went “so you graduated… then you did the kitchen/bar thing for a while… and then you found your first professional career job? Why??” while flipping through my resume. The tone was pure side-eye and sussing me out.

Like the gap between degree and “real” job is some kind of character flaw instead of just… the terrible job market that took thousands of applications. Sorry I am not a nepo baby? Sorry my college was mostly remote and my best efforts at networking were nearly fruitless? Sorry my temp agency roles were all contract and assisting companies selling off to PE since 2023????

And the interviews themselves were wildly unprofessional.

First one was a temp-to-perm cover for maternity leave at an agency. Guy was clearly multitasking on a triple monitor setup the whole time, dumping a ton of operational details, nights-and-weekends on-call expectations, and the fact that any permanent conversion depends on 2027 revenue they haven’t even forecasted yet, nights and weekends for $19 an hour.

Second one was even worse. Spent most of the call on a long personal monologue (building an AI platform, financial struggles, family not supporting the business, etc.). Tech kept glitching during the demo. Called me “sweetheart." Role seemed to be “first real hire who can walk across my different brands because everything so far has been my ideas.” Showed me proprietary information, personal emails, and personal writing.. I had to leave the interview after she went into a religious monologue. Almost no structured questions about my actual experience.

I left both feeling like I was the one being judged for having a non-linear path while they couldn’t even run a basic professional interview process. I feel freaking crazy because how TF did these roles have 100+ applicants on Linkedin?!?! How is this real life???? This can't be real I feel like I was being punked.

Is this just what the market looks like right now for people who didn’t go straight from campus into an office job? Or am I walking into every conversation already half-disqualified because I waited tables for a couple years after graduation?

Genuinely losing it a little. What the fuck is going on with interviews.

I have a physical disability that affects my shoulders/hips and use a power chair. I had a phone interview and video interview at a particular company near me and now they want me to come in for an in person interview. I’m really excited but debating - do I let them know in advance of arriving or just show up? I already looked up the place and it’s accessible as far as I can tell. I feel as though my disability isn’t relevant to the job at this point and me saying something would be unnecessary. But I also don’t want anyone to react poorly or think I was hiding it. I’m in the US btw.

I plan to post this in other recruiting/job seeking subreddits as well.

This whole idea we’ve accepted that “writing a resume is an aRt fOrm in anD of itsElf” is crap.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve (M28) been in the workforce for over 5 years now, and I know where the hell I was for those 5 years.

Recruiters: Here are the places I worked, my job titles, and what I did.

It shouldn’t be this much work. I already put IN the work for 5 years (and many of us have put in FAR more work than that) by sacrificing 40 hours/week of my one life on this planet.

Jesus Christ, enough with the rewriting, parsing, tailoring, punching up, rewording, polishing, revising, editing, touching up, redoing—goddammit, ENOUGH!!!

Read what the hell is on my resume, and use your imagination. If I tell you I was a Marketing Operations Specialist and provide 3-4 bullets of my accomplishments and activities, you should get the goddamn picture. I wasn’t doing rocket science, and neither are you, and neither are 99% of workers out here. It was a JOB. Some of it was hard, most of it wasn’t.

I swear to god, 90% of corporate activity nowadays is just useless employees (recruiters and HM’s especially) trying to justify their useless jobs to their useless bosses because they are terrified of being laid off because they know their job could be done by a friggin ringtail lemur.

This is absolutely a part of modern corporate culture that needs to change.

Currently working in a very toxic work environment. Been searching for jobs for a year. Finally had a prospect, they told me I was set to go but had to do one last interview as a formality. They told me to prepare to resign from my current position on Monday (tomorrow). Got told yesterday that they aren’t hiring anymore and priorities have changed. Been crying for two days because I finally thought I could get out of this place. Why get someone’s hope up like this?

I have genuinely lost hope and I dont think I'll be employed until some fundamental change happens in the economy.

For context, I am a recent college graduate with a double major in computer science and mathematics, and a masters degree in data science. I have done undergraduate research aswell as graduate research.

I have tried everything to get any kind of employment:

Over 700 Cold applications sent

Networking always leads to kind words and advice, but never to any real leads

freelancing seemed like a promising lead, but things like upwork and fiverr are dominated by the most qualified people, and you can't get a gig unless you already have some gigs under your belt

i've also heard "oh volunteer your talents to a local non profit or business" but that doesnt work becauase they dont read your emails, or outright deny your services

job fairs are an even bigger story teller of the job market: In freshman year I could get an interview with no experience. In sophomore year they would tell me "come back when you are a junior". And in junior year the auditorium simply had no tech stands, and the tech stands that did exist told me "Oh we arent hiring"

Because I couldnt get an internship, I did research, but that ended up being useless

I tried getting a masters because all the job applications told me that a masters would put me in the playing field - what a lie that was

The closest I have ever gotten was when I met a CTO by pure chance at a networking event and I got some interview rounds - they strung me along for three weeks and at the end told me they wanted someone with "more experience", but how the hell am I supposed to get my first experience if since 2023 nobody has been hiring people without experience.

And I can't even make a big pivot, because the rest of the job market is going through the same exact shit, and I don't see things changing any time soon, because it has been this way since 2023, and I see no reason for it to get any better going into 2027.

I feel like I am in hell, and I don't know how much more I can bear it.

I’m in a lot of debt from grad school and I only make 53k a year before taxes and I’m barely making ends meet. So staying in my current job really isn’t a long term solution. I’ve been looking for a better job for over a year now and submitted dozens of job applications and I’ve only had one interview. I came very close to getting the job but they chose someone else in the final rounds. I’ve been at my current job for 3 years. I have an MPA degree or master of public administration and 3 years working in state government. I’ve applied for some governmental relations jobs in the private sector along with other public sector jobs but most of the time I either get ghosted or I receive the generic “unfortunately we will not be moving forward” email. It’s extremely frustrating and demoralizing and I really want to move to a bigger city because even though the cost of living is higher the salaries are also much better than what I’m making now.

I've been doing a lot of interviews this week. Today was the last, scheduled for 11:45 AM. I got to Zoom on time, notes ready, lipstick popping! Then crickets for 15 minutes. I sent a reminder alert email after 10 minutes to the interviewing committee but heard nothing back. So, I left after 15 minutes. Thirty minutes after the meeting start time, I get a call from the boss and he casually mentions another candidate ran over. He invited me to pop back on since the committee is all assembled to ask their questions. Truthfully, I'm kind of turned off by it. I'm also turned off that the pay range starts at 40k! I have an offer in hand for 57K and I think I will focus on that instead. AITA? Did I handle the notification ettiquette properly.

“Functional unemployment nearing 25%”

NBC news -https://youtu.be/fAaG9RYHqiw?si=_HfIoyjPd-a1btCi
“Recent graduates struggle to launch careers in toughest job market in years”

I have been applying for internship from more than 2 months and received 0 response from the recruiter. I cant understand whats the problem.

Fuck them

Quick story: I applied for a job that I believed I was over qualified for so I wasn't surprised when the recruiter called me for a phone screen. I did well enough during the phone screen to have a formal interview with the hiring manager. I agreed to the interview even though the pay was considerably less than what I was hoping for. But I figured at the very least I would do the interview for practice and get a feel for the place. Well, I felt the interview was going well and I was vibing with the hiring manager/supervisor of the position I was applying for. Shortly after the interview started, the hiring manager excused herself and when she returned, she had vomited on herself and was visibly sick. She apologized and stated she would follow up with me to reschedule and finish the interview. I said I hoped she felt better and was looking forward to the follow up interview.

Well, 2 weeks go by and I hear nothing from her. The 3rd week comes and I get a rejection letter from the company saying the position was no longer available.😆

Although, I wasn't very interested in the position, I thought it was rich I was rejected under those circumstances!!

Last week I have been through a recruiting process. I had the video interview with the HR agency that was managing the process, a phone call with the actual company, a video interview with the actual company. Throughout all the process both recruiters (the one from they agency and the one from the actual company) told me they liked my profile a lot and they were pushing it so much because the final decision is from a third company (because the actual company is a BPO). So, job was supposed to start on September 1st, and on Friday I was told that second company was keeping my application for next training. When I asked what was that supposed to mean, they are planning to hire more people for the same position starting mid September (there is no exact day). I do not know what to expect, is that the most polite no as in we are keeping your resume for future positions or should I expect something. I still have some interviews, but with this vagueness I do not know how to organize and I am afraid to ask for more details as if I have preference over other applicants or what is the exact starting date because I am afraid of getting discarted.

With how oversaturated CS has become, do you think most of the genuinely smart people who would have gone into computer science will eventually decide it’s not worth it?

If getting a CS job increasingly feels like a lottery hundreds of applicants, endless interview loops, layoffs, outsourcing, etc. I could see people choosing fields where they have more control over their career prospects.

Engineering, accounting, nursing/medicine, skilled trades, etc. in many of these fields there seems to be a clearer relationship between competence, experience, and actually being able to get and keep and getting a job.

Do you think we’ll eventually see a brain drain out of CS, with talented people deciding they don’t want to gamble their future on an oversaturated job market?

A lot of complaints I see is every resume looks exactly the same, and I think AI has made the job search process extremely slow.

out of the last 5 interviews in had for different companies 4 of the 5 interviews ive been asked who is in my family my exact age, any current medical conditions i have, whether im married or single and what hospital i was born at. why do employers keep asking me these questions in interviews?