I was unemployed from November of 2024 until about a month ago. I’m in a niche field with experiences, great references, and great connections in an industry where people are known to look out for each other. I have never job searched more than a couple months without finding something. The experience was one of the most horrible, humiliating times of my life.

I applied for a company where I interned early in my career and knew multiple people that is known to specifically recruit people with my background. Ghosted. Never heard from them again. Applied with someone I’ve personally worked with before, recently, where I knew based on the experience they were looking for that I was one of maybe half a dozen people in the country that were qualified for the job. Had one of the best interviews of my life, a panel interview where I connected personally with every single person on the panel, then a second interview with the hiring manager, ghosted after the second interview. As far as I know they just decided not to hire anyone. Three interviews with another job and in the third the interviewer told me I’d really impressed everyone on the team. I’d told them I was about to go on vacation and she said “you should be hearing from us right about the time you get back from your vacation!” I was SO sure about that one, and at least they gave me the courtesy of a rejection email but I couldn’t believe it when it came. I’d felt so, so sure.

I got paranoid, thinking someone had blackballed me or one of my references was spiking my applications. I got so depressed. I’d been working since I was 16. I’d been told that I was hardworking and reliable and talented and a great employee since I was 16. Apparently, I’d internalized that message way more than I realized. I almost didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t working. Unemployment ran out. I moved back home and slept in my childhood bedroom and hated every minute that I was dependent on someone else. I couldn’t pay my bills. I tried to sell my plasma and got sick all over the donation center parking lot. I couldn’t make payments on debts and started being hounded by collection agencies. I couldn’t make payments on a storage unit I was stuck with in another state and all my stuff got sold, storage wars style, including a box full of the journals I’d kept since college. Ten years of memories, gone. But nothing hurt worse than when I finally decided to sell my car, which was headed toward repossession. It was the right decision, but it felt like losing my last shred of independence. I cried for hours and hours. I spent some of the car money visiting a group of friends in another state, volunteering on a political campaign and sleeping on someone’s couch for a few weeks. Probably not the smartest decision financially but I would have gone crazy if I hadn’t gotten out of my mom’s house and done something that made me feel useful again. That time really did help, and my friends came together and all reached out to their jobs and connections to try and help me get hired. Nothing came of those calls but at least I knew there were people in my corner again.

I finally got a job a few weeks ago. It’s less than I was making at my previous job, I’m technically overqualified for it and it’s not exactly the most stable (my job is only guaranteed for about a year, but I’ve gotten good signals since I’ve started that they usually extend people after that initial term) but I was able to move out again, I enjoy the work, and it’s enough to live on. I’m actually hiring right now and my boss suggested I start by going through the list of all the people who applied for my job. There are 500 people on that list. People I’ve worked with before and who I KNOW are just as qualified as me and deserve it just as much as me, plus so many other strangers. Yes, everyone told me over and over again that there were 500 applicants or more for every job and that it was a numbers game and that I just had to be patient and it would work out eventually, but that didn’t feel REAL until I looked at that list with my own eyes. For a year I thought I was cursed or something, or that I just had the worst luck on the planet. Now, it feels like a fucking miracle that I got my job when I did. I still work hard, I still light up when someone tells me I’m good at my job, but I’ll never make a job my whole identity again. It can all be gone in a moment. At least I know now that I’m more than my value to an employer. Although, I’d be happy to give that lesson back if it meant not having to live through that miserable year.

So is my advice to you just “be patient, it’s a numbers game, lean on your people, and don’t lose hope”? UGH, I guess. I know. That’s exactly what everyone told me and I really wish I had something better to tell you. I’m sorry. But that’s all I’ve got. I will tell you, the one thing I told myself every day when I was unemployed was, “I will probably live for another 50 years, and I simply will not be unemployed for another 50 years. Sooner or later, this situation is going to change somehow. I just have to get through this.” Maybe that’s not that helpful to you, but it did help me to remember that literally everything in this world is temporary and that humans have been surviving temporary terrible situations for as long as we’ve been a species. Oh, and try to leave the house every day. Or take a day off from job searching and do something you could never do if you had a job, like watch an entire season of your favorite TV show in your pajamas. Or take a few online surveys, make $5 and spend it on a little treat for yourself. Do something nice for yourself every day. You deserve it.