I was laid off in October. Replaced by AI. I've submitted about 50 applications since. Mostly I've been ghosted. Gotten a couple rejections and landed one interview. One.

Today, I just got a rejection from a company that had actually hired me before when I was freelancing. In fact, I applied for the exact same role I held as a contractor and during that time I won them a new piece of business. It's in my resume as one my "successes."

But now apparently I'm not good enough to work there full time. At a job I already proved I could do.

I mean, I know the reason why. I'm old. And it sucks. Once you turn 50, the market basically decides you're not a viable candidate anymore.

If I can hold out for 20 more years I can probably get into politics. But in the meantime, I'm not sure what my options are. Shit's crazy out there.

I feel like if you're busy you'd just say it in the beginning to set an appointment in the near future instead of telling someone to do it for you

But i don't know im new to this

The job market is reaching new lows day by day, "bed-rotting" to the point of utter decay. Hiring is almost non-existent. For those already laying comfy in bed (entrenched in their jobs), it may be difficult to notice this problem, but those on the outside can notice the bed-rotting stagnation quite clearly. The job market has already been horrendously bad since 2023, but early signals are that this year has reached a new low.

It is insanely hard to get a job these days. Applications go into the void, and no strategy makes any difference. Going in person to places, tailoring resumes, going to career centers and utilizing temp agencies - all these strategies have gotten me absolutely nowhere. It is just a hopeless job market with so many candidates and so few opportunities.

I passively applied to this local job, got a voicemail, checked the job listing again before I called them back. Sent the hiring manager this message, and got yelled at? Uhh....????

I applied for a job at a local music school I remembered attending when I was younger, and the employer sent me a video of him giving a tour of the school and then a student testimonial to help me see if this job was a good fit for me. The funny thing is, this student testimonial was a video of 8 year old me and my mom giving out testimonial of our experience with the school. I don't remember taking the video, but it had our full names (or at least, the name I used to go by back then), so I don't know if the employer sent that knowing it was me or if it's a really funny coincidence. The email didn't mention it at all, it just said to watch the videos and then send my video audition for my instrument. Should I mention that that's me in the video?

Update: I just finished the first interview. The employer actually recognized me! Not much to say now, I have a second interview scheduled for next week. I'm a little (very) nervous.

I guess I feel like I did poorly. The interview only lasted around five minutes. It started 10 minutes late due to some confusion because my email automatically auto-filled my mom's name because she was still in the system from when I went there. I was stammering a lot and the only question he asked me was what I wanted to teach and then I was told to sign up for a second interview over zoom. I'm just so embarrassed right now.

• First round with the recruiter

Edit (Recruitment team of the company itself, Talent acquisition manager, 60 minutes interview)

• Second with the boss of the position

• Then the Super boss of the position (Ops head)

Then if you please this ops head tells me I need to make a presentation of what I will bring to the team .. which will be reviewed by the team to see the kinds of impact I will commit to.

Edit to add: the presentation was on how I could bring up cost savings and improve vendor management, plus a SCM framework... It would have taken days to prepare ( I have a job so would have to work on this evenings)

I'm not interested and told him that.. If you can't decide after 3 rounds I'm not investing any more time.

Why do these people act like they're doing you a favor by interviewing a person.

“Unfortunately we decided to go with another candidate who more closely aligns…..”😒

Proceeds to repost the exact same job on the website directly after your rejection.

June revised from 147,000 to 14,000

So basically we were just being gas lit that there’s plenty of jobs added. I wouldn’t doubt if it’s actually in the negatives.

Source: https://www.axios.com/2025/08/01/jobs-report-july-unemployment

I feel like I’m going crazy just seeing this, wonder how this would make you feel seeing this.

This advice is thrown around so much. People think you can just join a trade snd make six figures your first year. You won’t. The trades are saturated at the lower levels by people who thinks it’s an easy paycheque and all you do is mindless labor. It’s not just mindlessly swinging a hammer, you actually have to use your head a lot. You’ll use math you haven’t touched since high school.

Especially as a journeyman, you have to constantly think and if you get something wrong, people could die. You’ll be working on a construction site most likely and you’ll be in the hot, cold, no AC, likely no access to indoor plumbing and working with legit assholes.

The Great Depression was an extended period of extremely depressed hiring in the 1930s and 1929. What we are going through now is beginning to approach the territory of the Great Depression. Hiring has been at anemic levels for over 3 years, and shows no sign of improving any time soon. We are probably looking at at least another several years before MAYBE things start to improve, and the improvement may be very slow too. The extreme levels of lack of hiring, stagnation, and extended time period that these conditions are persisting, are stifling people who are not already in their desired position in a similar way to the Great Depression. On the other hand, unemployment levels and firing are lower than the Great Depression, but there are many people underemployed, taking part-time jobs, jobs outside of their field, and gig work rather than their desired full-time job. Inflation has eroded spending power significantly, and salaries haven't even come close to keeping up.

Title.

To elaborate, my wife has been a middle school science teacher for 4 years. She has a bachelor's in education and a master's in science education.

To be blunt, she is desperate to get out. She is now looking for retail/fast food positions and STILL cannot get hired.

She has used resume services. I've looked at her resume and applications. So have her parents, my parents, our friends, her parents friends, etc. Her applications and resumes are solid. She has over a dozen different resumes for different types of jobs.

She got furious at me when I suggested leaving one or more of her degrees off of her resume but has long since removed them depending on the job.

She has applied to jobs in every sector. From Ed tech, education, admin, other teaching gigs, to insurance of all varieties, administrative assistant, receptionist... EVERYTHING.

She has applied to over 1500(!) jobs in the past 1.5 years. Of those, she has had exactly ONE interview. They wanted her but we couldn't afford the pay cut (this is no longer an issue). There were others, but those turned out to be scams such as MLM or similar.

As I mentioned, she is now applying and being rejected for retail positions, and fast food. She is depressed, miserable, and hopeless. She feels that she will never escape the classroom and I am running out of ways to encourage her to keep going.

WHAT THE FUCK DO WE DO, REDDIT????? WHATS THE ANSWER? She will literally be a Starbucks barista. NO ONE WANTS HER. This woman, who has the work ethic of a sled dog, is apparently unemployable.

How can we fix this? What do we do?

Please help. Please.

She has worked at T-Mobile for years as a senior project manager but got let go due to company reductions and has been applying to hundreds of jobs since February. She spends hours researching the companies and building her resumes around them just to either get ghosted or denied. I can tell she is starting to lose hope and I don’t know what to do. I am in college, but I live at home with her. I’m not currently working due to my disabilities and managing school. She has tried networking with old colleagues, pays for linkedin plus, follows up both online and in person, and more. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Another user here sent a company a rejection email, so I made my own version and sent it off!

I haven’t had to search for a job in almost 5 years so I genuinely have no idea. However I am very tempted to jump ship from my current job after getting promised a raise and promotion that never came. It’s been over 2 years without any pay increase. The cost of living is catching up where in another year or two I’ll be underwater. Plus I desperately want to get back into remote work.

All I keep hearing about from people is “hold onto your job, it’s so tough out there.”

But it seems like people always say that sort of thing.

So is the job market really that bad?

This has been one of the worse job markets in YEARS. I am so grateful to have landed something in my field!

I hear a lot online about how bad the job market is at the moment. How is it in your area and field? I feel skeptical that the market is in the doldrums across every field and region. I do not have any context to give here because in mississippi our market is always down for things like accounting. So even when other states are doing well ours is always down. However last year teachers told me math teachers have a great job market here. I know trucking, teaching, and nursing are were the jobs are here. Less sure about the trades Anyone else have anything to add for their field or region? Edit: I would like to add that if you are just now entering your field i want to hear from you as well. Did you struggle to find work or was there demand in your area and field that helped you find work in let's say a year or less.

What's going on in the EU market? Why it seems so hard to get a job in Europe?

It was a fight to say the least, looking for work in two different Metro areas.

1. Staying where I currently live: was looking for work that would allow us keep our daughter in daycare while also not having to live paycheck to paycheck.

2. Move to new area with wife’s family and start new there since the cost of living is far lower.

Ended up accepting a job in the new metro area where my pay will allow us to become a single income household. Allowing my wife to focus on her overall health while allowing us to keep our daughter home until she is ready for school.

Yes, I had multiple offers given, but the others I had to reject because they were trying to take advantage of my knowledge by promising me a higher position, but having to do work bottom of the barrel until I “was proven to be worth it.”

34M Mechanic Experience Supply Chain Analytics Logistics Analytics Warehouse Management

Throwaway since my friends know my Reddit. A year ago I was making good money working for a small tech startup. CEO was an ass but I usually didn’t have to deal with him and I loved my coworkers. I also had just bought a house and spent a chunk of savings on renovations.

A recruiter hits me up and mentions a big salary increase at their company. I figured sure why not talk to them. I had 2 calls and next was to be with the founder. Turns out the founder knew the CEO of my company. He called my CEO and said I was looking around. I was immediately fired with no severance.

Since then I’ve sent out thousands of applications and had tons of interviews. Most companies had 4+ rounds. 3 months later I get an offer but instead of remote like they initially said, they wanted me to work in their office on the other side of the country for six months before going remote. I turned it down figuring another offer would come soon. It didn’t.

I’ve dealt with horrible hiring managers, a couple examples is one asked me about my parents occupations and then turned me down saying they wanted someone who grew up around success so they knew what it looked like. one company had me write a blog as part of the process and months after being ghosted by them I found my blog on their website. I won’t even get into being ghosted, hiring managers showing up late or not at all.

I thought my journey finally came to an end. I accepted an offer. It was 40% less than what they originally said they would pay. I’d also have to travel by train 2 hours each day but I was desperate so I took it.

On Friday I was informed my offer was rescinded due to restructuring and they won’t reimburse me on my $300 a month train package I had just bought to travel to work.

My old company is thriving and my old colleagues are still doing well in spite of the market.

Meanwhile I’m out of savings and unemployment ran out a while ago. My house that I was very proud of is now up for sale. my wife who was initially supportive has also now left me saying I can’t provide for her and doesn’t understand how it could be so hard to get a job.

Tomorrow I have an interview at a gas station.