This is a story based on the collective thoughts from friends and strangers alike whose words resonate with us as they search for a job. Their voices echo the voices of many individuals, layered with frustration, exhaustion and the question that grows louder each day: what more can we do when employers refuse to hire us? As listed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and reported by NBC News 4 in Los Angeles, 25% of Americans have been unemployed for six months or more. Long-term unemployed people are those who have been jobless for at least 27 weeks and consists of an estimated 1.9 million people as of August.
“I feel like nothing ever works out for me,” one job seeker told me. “There’s a deep kind of black hole and I can’t find my way out. I keep falling deeper and deeper.”
That sense of falling, whether into debt, despair or doubt about the future is not isolated. It is a collective voice rising across the country. Candidates apply for dozens, even hundreds of jobs and hear back from only a handful of potential employers, if at all. For older applicants, questions of age discrimination linger. For younger ones, the problem can be a lack of experience in a job market that may not allow for learning on the job.
A cycle of rejection and debt
The numbers are personal prior to becoming statistics. Rent and mortgages lag behind. Car payments stack up, one after another. A credit card slips into default, shrinking options for a loan.
The job market weighs heavily on individuals who simply want to work. “It is not a matter of being overly selective,” the same job seeker said. “I’ve been searching for jobs related to my career field and also jobs where I can work in retail, but I’m not getting hired. Is it age discrimination? Could it be they’re looking for someone they can pay less?”
This is the paradox many face. Workers are told to remain flexible, expand their search and accept something or anything. Yet when applications are submitted to retail, food service or warehouse jobs, silence often follows.
Barriers beyond effort
Financial institutions can also be seen as another barrier. An article recently published by Bankrate provides insight to this type of barrier. Although we may not know the full details about individuals who have applied for a loan within the last year and have been rejected, loan denials are common if you are a lower-income household and do not have excellent credit. One applicant who turned to their bank for help with a loan was denied due to late car payments already on record. Proof of new employment did not carry any weight. Banking institutions may be more concerned with economic uncertainty while the writing is on the wall for those with less than favorable credit, making it more difficult to keep a roof over their head.
“I told them I just started working three-quarters [0.75] time. I asked if there was anything they could do to work with that,” another individual said. “But the loan department said underwriting can’t do anything to help me.” The call ended in tears, frustration pouring out. The desire to work and simply keep a roof overhead clashed with a system that measures risk by numbers rather than circumstance.
A universal frustration
Scroll through LinkedIn or any job forum and you will see the stories repeat with unease. Mid-career professionals with advanced degrees seeking employment. Recent graduates eager for entry-level positions. Former managers willing to start fresh in customer service.
“Even fast food won’t hire me,” one man stated. “I don’t know what else to do.”
The job market has grown into a place where dissatisfaction stretches across industries and income levels. It is not solely about being overqualified or underqualified. It is about opportunity shrinking while demand swells.
Structural shifts
Economists point to a number of factors: companies scaling back after pandemic-era hiring booms, automation reducing front-line positions, or employers raising requirements even for routine roles. Many roles once seen as accessible now demand too many years’ experience, advanced technical skills or multiple rounds of testing. On a personal note, what I have observed on LinkedIn is astounding. Job postings consist of outrageous and unintelligible preferences or requirements. I have seen employers’ job postings listing zero to five years of experience. What happens if you get an extremely qualified candidate with on-target skills and background who has five years of experience? Or a candidate who meets about 50% to 75% of the skills and background and has only one year experience?
The more qualified candidate with greater experience is left behind in favor of the less-qualified person who will accept lesser pay for the same job. Is this one reason why individuals cannot get hired right now? What about the job postings that do not list a reasonable salary range but rather an outrageous range such as $47,000 to $98,000? An employer-provided salary range indicates what the employer is prepared to pay for a certain position. How seriously are they considering a well-qualified candidate at the $47,000, $70,000 and $98,000? Is it worth paying someone a $98,000 salary for meeting or exceeding years of experience? Is it worth paying someone a salary on the lower end if the range with the same experience?
I have witnessed people saying, “Employers might give you a salary range, but if you are expecting a salary toward the top of the range, you won’t get the job.” This person further stated, “They’ll pay the lesser amounts that might be tied to lesser experience and work ethic, but at least they won’t need to pay out a higher amount even if the other person is very well qualified.” Hearing comments like this is disheartening and it is understandable why people are losing hope in their job search.
Emotional toll
The weight of rejection takes its own toll. Multiple rejections eat away at your confidence which leaves even the strongest candidates to second-guess their worth. One job seeker said, “I feel paralyzed and frozen and don’t know what to do,” and further stated, “I feel like it’s not right. It’s not fair to struggle so much when all I want to do is work, pay my bills and get caught up.”
This despair is evident not only in finances but in mental health. Depression, anxiety and feelings of isolation are frequent companions on the long road of job searching. Though initially seen as counter-productive, stepping back from the job search to nurture your mental health can be helpful for the long-term. Job searching for eight to 10 hours a day with minimal breaks from screen time is destructive. In the past, I have thought, “I feel guilty taking time away from my job search and now I’m even more stressed.”
Mental health should be a top priority while job searching. Give your brain a break. Switch gears to refresh yourself to be even stronger while seeking work. Though this seems counterintuitive, believing in yourself and taking care of yourself, even during a time of crisis trying to find employment, is a key ingredient for mental health success.
Searching for hope
Despite the bleakness, many job seekers continue to seek inspiration where they can. They follow career coaches on LinkedIn, hoping to find a quick fix to their stagnant job search. They share information in online communities, hoping that if one person’s application fails, that maybe another opportunity might appear, only to be disappointed again.
Some individuals adjust their strategies by tailoring resumes for each application, networking more aggressively and volunteering to fill resume gaps. Others take temporary or part-time roles, not as solutions but as survival. Dozens of job seekers I have spoken with the last few years are operating on survival or desperation mode, with no leads in sight.
The question lingers: what will it take to turn this around?
A shared call
The answer may not come quickly. But what job seekers want is clear: the chance to be seen, considered and hired. The desire is not for handouts but for opportunity.
The voices collected here reflect that shared call. As one person shared, “All I want to do is work.” Another person stated, “Why is it this hard just to be allowed to work?”
Behind every rejection email, behind every unanswered application, there are lives in motion, perhaps lives in survival mode with families, bills, hopes and faith tested. It is not solely numbers on an economic chart. It is truly survival, dignity and the belief that work, so central to identity and stability, should not be this elusive. This is heartbreaking.
The struggle is real, but so is the persistence. For every job seeker who wonders if things will ever change, there is another who keeps applying, keeps showing up, keeps trying to move forward. That determination may be the only constant in a market that feels anything but steady.
And perhaps it is there, in the persistence to keep searching, that the first glimpse of hope can be found.
Featured image: Photo by Resume Genius on Unsplash
Edited by James Sutton
