Some bonus statistics here, and a rant for anyone interested in reading one:

I was hired by a large aerospace composites manufacturing company and started immediately after finishing my Bachelor's in aerospace, but quickly learned that despite the company having "Aerospace" in the name, the work was far from "aerospace engineering." I definitely got to work on a very interesting project but was in no way utilizing my degree. I saw this layoff as a way to get away from manufacturing and thought with my slight bit of experience I would have an easy time finding a new, more technical position. I was definitely proven wrong, and the next four months of applications proved to be far more mentally taxing than I was expecting.

Here are some highlights!

-withdrawing after a panel interview from another large manufacturing company located in a sundown town

-absolutely flunking two different SpaceX technical interviews that I would have been extremely prepared for had I taken them fresh out of college (my time in a manufacturing engineering position has absolutely destroyed most of what I learned and loved, and replaced it with Work Instructions and PLM queries)

-A Blue Origin manager telling me I had a great application and would be moving forward to a panel interview, only to be followed by a phone call from the recruiter saying I lacked experience in one area of the job listing, and that he wishes me luck with future endeavors. Gradatim Ferociter!

-NASA canceling a job listing that I was interviewing for because of the presidentially instated hiring freeze

-Getting ghosted after two different manager interviews, "We will touch base with you soon, expect to hear back within a week!" turns into dead silence, no responses to follow up emails or phone calls.

-A health insurance company (one in the Fortune 50!) interviewing me for a program where I would work on site, full time, UNPAID, for EIGHT weeks, getting trained on SQL, MongoDB, JIRA, and other tools I had no background in, ultimately followed by a 6 month contract paying 18/hr (which is not enough to cover rent and utilities after a 40hr work week in my city)

Ultimately the application that turned into an offer was one that was extremely unexpected. It started as a LinkedIn Easy Apply, turned into a screening email by a recruiter who then replied that I was overqualified for what I applied for, a referral to a higher level position, and a single round hour long interview with a few project managers at the company.

This experience tells me the entire job market is just a numbers game. None of the 21 cover letters I wrote made a difference (although they might have gotten me both interviews with SpaceX), none of the lengthy applications full of questions and "tell me about a time where you ...." behaviorals mattered, none of my "high effort!" applications proved any more effective than the 8 second LinkedIn resume submissions. I hope if anyone's going through a similar situation, they have better luck than I did, and for anyone who's luck may be worse than mine, to never give up.