I had a job. The company didn’t realize that they actually had to sell product to stay in business. Almost all of the workforce was let go or furloughed. I’ve been unemployed for over a month now.

I’ve filled out dozens upon dozens of job apps, starting even before I lost my job. I have my resume public on job listings sites for employers and hiring agencies to find, and I’ve sent my resume to employers and hiring agencies directly. I look through the listings on job boards for each day, mostly limiting my search to a wage that would allow me to make ends meet at home. I’ve solicited and implemented advice from resume design experts. I’ve had one in-person interview, a few preliminary phone interviews, and a couple of message conversations between recruiters and myself. The one in-person interview I had would not have paid enough for my monthly expenses and I was overqualified for the position; they decided against hiring me. I had another interview scheduled and confirmed via a hiring agency’s AI text bot and a human agent’s text; I drove to the scheduled interview place and time and they had no idea that I was supposed to be interviewed. All other communication has either been flat-out rejection or just left me hanging.

I have a Bachelor’s of Science degree from a top 25 ranked university in the US. I have no criminal record. I do have multiple disabilities but they are generally mitigable enough to not affect my work. I have references of my (now) former boss and a (now) former coworker who both praise my impact and aptitude in the factory and office workplace. I’m evidently overqualified for positions that don’t require higher experiences and I’m underqualified for nearly everything else; I can’t get experience in most niche or broad fields because nearly every position requires these experiences to have already been met. I try to follow all the invisible rules of applying and social etiquette. I am too physically ugly to sell my body. It feels like there’s always been a magical aura about me that makes people dislike me no matter how much I try to do the ethically or socially right thing. How am I supposed to get an income to survive?

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    27 days ago

    I will say in advance that I’m sorry this won’t help you and it might make you feel worse, so don’t read on… when I was in high school back in the 90s, we had a regular substitute teacher. Dr. Bronk. Dr. Bronk had a PhD in some very obscure area of botany and couldn’t get a job in his field, so he was a substitute teacher. Even back then I felt bad for him.

    • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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      26 days ago

      They covered this in the thread yesterday and OP believes they are not eligible because they passed some deadline to apply. People told them that no such deadline exists and it seems like OP is unwilling to apply for it. If you read this OP, please apply, it can’t hurt.

  • Toes♀@ani.social
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    27 days ago

    In my experience unless you’re friends with someone at the company. You need to be a unicorn candidate when applying on your own.

    Entry level is an illusion they want people to take entry level pay with 10+ years of experience.

    I was able to get my first industry job through the career services department at my school. So if your university is as good as they claim they’ll have something akin to that.

  • planish@sh.itjust.works
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    25 days ago

    I mean, fundamentally you’re not supposed to obtain income. The system that distributes money is not actually designed to give people money to live, and nobody is really steering it to make it do that. It just happens to sometimes do that. I’m not sure anyone has actually “designed” it to do anything, but it seems at least much better at concentrating money and power than it is at creating plausible jobs or job-housing-food combinations for humans.

    I hope you find some good advice as to how you can get income to survive. I don’t really have any, other than shake all your friends down for jobs (since hiring is usually done by knowing somebody rather than by weighing the merits of an unbiased stream of varyingly qualified applicants) and be prepared to search for employment for many months (a thing you might have had to have started doing before now for best results). But it’s not hard because you are somehow not doing it “right” or the way you are “supposed to”, it’s hard because the problem you are facing it isn’t actually constrained to be solvable. You can do it all right and still not succeed.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      25 days ago

      It just happens to sometimes do that. I’m not sure anyone has actually “designed” it to do anything

      wouldn’t it by definition be designed to efficiently extract labor from the population? That’s why the population has boomed so aggressively in the last few hundred years.

  • BilboBargains@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    The situation where a candidate is rejected because they don’t have relevant experience is often decided by people who don’t have that experience either. The last thing I want is a job where I immediately know how to do it. That’s often the reason to leave - it’s boring and not a challenge any more.

    The market is probably flat right now and that’s the reason there’s no jobs. You have to hang in there for a bit and wait for an upturn.

  • Hawk@lemmynsfw.com
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    25 days ago

    Wife and I have been unemployed for nearly a year. We’re in a white collar recession so it’s gonna be brutal for a little while. Not much you can do really, it’s really hard right now.

    Labouring / trades seem like the ticket tbh.

  • nek0d3r@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    This year in particular has just been a fucking awful job market. I lost my job in January and had severance last a couple months, but even after spending every day reading job boards and filing job applications until I was emotionally exhausted, I had zero callbacks for seven months. It was only a few months ago that I got two interviews, and I got offers from both. As soon as I accepted, I had some other companies suddenly crawling to me with offers. I’m still recovering from my debts accrued in that time, but I’m finally in a much better place now. Keep going at it, and I promise something will crack.

  • Wes4Humanity@lemm.ee
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    25 days ago

    Have you applied for unemployment yet? They’ll usually back pay to when you were laid off too if you get through all the red tape… Might be a state by state thing idk

    Have you ever thought about talking to a therapist about the magic aura thing? There might be something you don’t realize that they could help you figure out.

    Could you get a job of any kind and reduce your living standard for a little while to match what you make? This is a shitty answer, and really should only ever apply to the 1%… But sadly we do live in a capitalist hellscape… Good luck

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    Ah, Liberal Arts degree. Fun. Might be better to go back into academia for the rest of your life, lol.

    Otherwise just keep at it. Sometimes it takes 3 applications or sometimes it takes hundreds. If you can lift then Nursing homes and in-home helpers are always hiring more people, right now.

      • janNatan@lemmy.ml
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        26 days ago

        If you’re a man willing to make gay feet content, then your feet just need to be sweaty or dirty, not sexy. Hairy helps too.

          • janNatan@lemmy.ml
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            25 days ago

            I don’t know. I actually hate feet, but I get the content sometimes in my feeds. Hopefully someone else will come along and answer you.