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?
That last bit about your unlikeable aura, you should get someone to give you honest feedback on what you're doing wrong.
The thing is, once you’ve been stuck in it for so long everywhere, you don’t know how the few people whom you find judicious and honest and whose general input you respect and appreciate can also somehow be sane and in-touch if they are the anomalies who think the same of you. You question if praise and affirmation from them is just an overly polite way of hiding pity and disdain. Even if their analysis says all is good, does that really mean all is good? That’s why I described it as magical, because it’s internally contradictory and independent of social setting. Since I can’t even get to the interview stage, then the text of the resume as approved by others becomes a conduit for the aura to affect the potential employers simply because the resume is mine. That’s the conceit I mean when I say it’s like magic.
Are you autistic? Not meant as an insult, but a genuine question. You write very verbosely and might benefit from working on being more straightforward.
I’ve not been diagnosed but I wouldn’t be surprised if I were. I think the verbosity and run-on sentences are coming out strong right now since I’m stressed over the job stuff, it’s late at night, and Lemmy is a fairly casual forum. As William Shakespeare said, “Brevity”.