No Stupid Questions

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.

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.

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.

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

So I don't know if you tried looking for state jobs.

I see you are in Michigan so, apply for something that you’re overqualified for and then work the job until you’re past the probation period.

Then, apply for the job you want. They hire internally first for pretty much every position. This is how several people's experience go about how they got into their current position with the state at DHHS.

A popular position for getting your foot in the door is processing food stamp applications. It’s remote and doesn’t require a bachelor’s degree, so having a bachelor’s degree will likely get you an interview.

Also, this applies in general:

Applicant recruiting software usually looks for key words.

Look at the ad & attached position description and highlight the words and phrases used.

Include them in your resume, cover letter, application. You have to tailor your application to each position. It’s a royal pain, but that’s how most recruiting software works.

I would also urge you to call the respective departments/agencies HR departments and ask about the position. A current employee may be able to flag your application depending on whom you speak to.

Either that or try MDOC as some say it is the easiest way into the State. Its not for everyone but its an option. They always look for people.

So to summarize

Use exact words and terms from the job description on your application. The software will search and grade your application by these hits.

Keep it short. Use only one font. The software diagnoses the beginning font and can't read anything that deviates from the font.

Apply for an entry level position and work your way up to the position you actually want.

Other options

Check the community college job postings near where you live! When they are about to start a new semester, they usually have openings

On that note, The schools are always hiring. It varies depending on the district, but Livonia school for example is looking for the following:

https://www.applitrack.com/livoniapublicschools/onlineapp/default.aspx?all=1

Manufacturing is ALWAYS hiring. Drive by just about any plant in the Metro Detroit area and probably there will be 'now hiring' signs all over the place.

No experience will probably start around $15/hr, but if you learn fast & want to advance, there are usually ways to move up pretty quickly.

Check out mml.org’s classifieds if you haven’t already. Again, people often overlook city government jobs but the pay is often decent and have good benefits. Some also tend to browse governmentjobs.com.

Oakland County seems to have lots of different jobs available.

https://careers-oakgov.icims.com/jobs/search?hashed=-625890832&mobile=true&width=412&height=815&bga=true&needsRedirect=false&jan1offset=-180&jun1offset=-180

Try contacting an agency like kelly or arrow strategies if you're in tech.

Remember we are near the end of year. December January February are basically dead time for gigs, they all pick up on march

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.

Have you applied for civil service jobs?

It’s a really tough job market. Don’t be afraid to take something shorter term if it moves your income from zero to something. Even if that something is not enough for the long term, it will buy you time. And should this continue on and on, you can look at what options you have to lower your living costs. No one wants to make such sacrifices, but they too can buy you time.

Best of luck with the search.

This is not legal advice.

Lie.

I know you're looking for more immediate and stable income, but: Are you able to make anything? If you want to try your hand at a business, I'd be glad to help you with the tech stack side of things pro bono. I can get you set up with domain, email, website, and a marketing suite at least; I've also started four companies of my own so I can help you with the paperwork and structure stuff for that if you wanted.

I do this sort of thing entirely via email and video call for SMEs at my day job. It wouldn't be steady at first and you might have to stop when you find a job... But in the meantime, while you're looking, it's work you can make for yourself. And who knows? Maybe it would become enough to sustain you on its own.

Just spitballing, anyway. Offer's there 😊 Good luck!

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.

It has taken me, on average, 6 months to find new work each time I do it and I send hundreds of resumes. So I think you are doing the right things. It just sucks. Sometimes you can get a lead from someone you know and that gets your foot in the door.

Remember, you are reviewing them as an employer too. If they have a shitty applicant experience, that should play into your decision process (easier said than done when you just want to make rent).

Feel free to message me if you would like resume or other search help.

I'm an idiot, I'm blue collar, I've had about 20 jobs I've kept for at most, 3 years, and I could quit my job and have a new one tomorrow, for more money.

and that isn't fair to you. People like you dedicate your life to knowing your topic. People like me live my life knowing how to do as many different possible things as I can, and a monetary balance needs to be in place here somewhere so academics with more rare skills are still upheld so their abilities are still useful when needed.

A safetynet, for smarties to be paid to be smart, to keep them around even if unnecessary right then.

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Network

For every 200 applications you submit, you’re putting in as much energy as you could with one quality lead where you know someone. You gotta leverage connections, do informational interviews, etc. The reality is that a lot of job postings for skilled positions are put out there because the employer has to do it. They already know who they want.

I love how everyones advice here is pretty much "just lie". Really says somthing about our society hey.

Honestly my dude. Lie.

Find a job you're interested in and then tell them that you have the experience needed to do that job. Make shit up if you have to. Get the job and then learn how to do it as you go.

I'm probably going to get down voted for this. I don't fucking care. It's the truth. If you're telling recruiters the absolute Rock solid truth then you're giving them all of the cards and they are going to try to get you to underbid your abilities and skills but if you'll put the effort in and just reach a little bit you'll be fine.

Like, I wouldn't say apply to be a doctor when you don't have a medical degree or anything but apply for that senior position when you only have a Junior's skill. Go for executive vice administrator or senior associate programmer or sysdmin Ii or whatever the fuck is a step above your actual capabilities and then do your God damnedest to grow into the role in the first six to eight weeks of the job and more than likely you'll be fine.

Back in the day I did very similar and it has worked out swimmingly for me and I believe you're a smart person and that you're capable and that you can succeed if you're given the opportunity and if you have to lie to get your foot in the door then fucking lie and go for it, and once they let you in turn that fucking lie into the goddamned truth.

I recently ended my job hunt not too long ago. You need throughput in putting out resumes and cover letters. Use ChatGPT and have it generate cover letters for each job posting. Edit it so it doesn't obviously read like it was generated from an LLM and get rid of any experiences it hallucinates on your behalf. It works better if your template resume is similar to the job posting in wording.

Generating matching resumes and cover letters used to take up about an hour for me per application before ChatGPT. Now it takes about 15 minutes per application. Use that speed (and decreased mental labor) to your advantage. More jobs applied to means more potential hits.

Applying for jobs is the suck, so use whatever tools you can to lessen the suck.

Can you get in touch with the other colleagues that were let go alongside yourself and ask what they're doing? Maybe they've found something and will put a good word in for you.

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.