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Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

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Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#481

Post by glukki »

Got laid off with the rest of my colleagues in February 2025, been searching for a job for 6 months. I was applying to 2 jobs per day on average, 400 in total; and making test assignments. Interviews were a rare thing until July-August. Or maybe I just reworked CV well enough to this moment.

Meanwhile, I focused on learning trending tools and skills, and was coping by working on DIY projects involving 3D modelling and printing, electronics, programming. Wife was very supportive during that time Around the end of August I got the first offer, and two weeks later another better one.

Market is awful. Much worse than the last time I was looking for a job, 5 years ago.

Keep up!

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#482

Post by threefiftyone96 »

myth2018 wrote: post #213

Senior dev, 22 years of experience. Almost exactly two years unemployed right now. I've done some technical leadership before but I'm not looking into it anymore, not really my thing. In general, I get very few replies, even fewer interviews and 100% eventually "freeze the position" or simply ghost me. I've heard that too many companies are currently spending their HR budgets in market research and have no intention…

What's your stack?

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#483

Post by ethbr1 »

jjav wrote: post #420
ethbr1 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imho, anything past where you've worked on LinkedIn is a waste of time. And arguably even a negative signal. Productive people have jobs to do instead of grinding Monopoly karma. Yes, this absolutely includes LinkedIn thought leadership. I know MS and recruiters love to push the 'it matters' line, but I'd ask the reader -- who would you rather hire: someone who wow'd in an interview or someone with LinkedIn flair?

> who would you rather hire: someone who wow'd in an interview or someone with LinkedIn flair? Wrong question. This is not about the hiring stage. Who would I rather move on to a phone screen: someone with an empty or nonexistent linkedin profile, or someone with a profile which matches their resume and has many connections to other people who worked at the same companies? While I hate to have to say it is the latter…

Hence

> anything past where you've worked on LinkedIn is a waste of time

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#485

Post by james_marks »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #261
james_marks wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No connections and no work history, I would blacklist as spam.

How do you ensure linkedin history isn’t falsified? I’ve seen all sort of false claims, but ultimately small programming task is best to sift out people.

You check references and watch for clues that it doesn’t add up.

Imperfect, but effective enough that this is how the world has solved for this forever.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#486

Post by notmyjob »

Aurornis wrote: post #199
comment95198 wrote: post #52

I had a bout of poor health. And now I'm isolated and I don't know how to get reconnected to other people. I'm not coping terribly well. I think what is most distressing is that I am observing a decline in my capacity. I feel mentally sluggish. I frustrate more easily. I tire more easily. Probably most worryingly to me I get spikes of aggression that lead to combative outbursts. I feel less empathetic, even mildly sa…

> I'm not coping terribly well. I think what is most distressing is that I am observing a decline in my capacity. I feel mentally sluggish. I frustrate more easily. I tire more easily. Probably most worryingly to me I get spikes of aggression that lead to combative outbursts. I feel less empathetic, even mildly sadistic at times. Very hard to control the envy and the average person I interact with evokes envy. This i…

You realize social isolation causes MDD? Parent probably knows he has MDD, but does it matter what it’s called. A rose by another name…

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#487

Post by dzonga »

ReverieFish wrote: post #94

Left my job on the East Coast in 2023 when my F1-OPT expired. Returned to my home country to recuperate, focus on my mental and physical health, shrug off the perpetual anxiety, etc. Married my now wife who was still building her career in the US, moved back here, and I'm waiting on my work authorisation. Can't say I'm too chuffed about being here right now, but c'est la vie.

how long have you been waiting on your work authorization ?

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#488

Post by BrawnyBadger53 »

pluc wrote: post #59

Lost my job in early 2023. Couldn't find anything (25 years of exp, director of engineering managerial/technical type, great at what i do by past coworkers/bosses admission). By EOY I had to sell my house, figured I could use the (significant) profits to buy time or I could travel and make the time a little more enjoyable, so I set out to explore most of Europe thinking, well I'll for sure find a job before I run out…

After reading through this thread, do you not think you might be being overly selective? You said you're only really applying to European jobs but hiring people that need working visas is usually a pretty big detractor. No LinkedIn can work, but in the LLM era you need something to prove you're real and you also stated you haven't been asking previous coworkers for referrals. It's very normal here to ask coworkers for referrals so I assume it's a cultural difference? But they usually get you to the interview stage. Your resume is likely not baring you but if you are applying to large enough companies that have thousands of applications on each role, they are using LLMs to filter them down. You should be running your resume against an "Act as a hiring manager" style prompt to see if you're getting filtered that way.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#489

Post by notmyjob »

dmbche wrote: post #92
comment95198 wrote: post #52

I had a bout of poor health. And now I'm isolated and I don't know how to get reconnected to other people. I'm not coping terribly well. I think what is most distressing is that I am observing a decline in my capacity. I feel mentally sluggish. I frustrate more easily. I tire more easily. Probably most worryingly to me I get spikes of aggression that lead to combative outbursts. I feel less empathetic, even mildly sa…

If you can I'd chat to my doctor about Adhd and trying something like concerta! I'm able to recognize many of the things you are mentionning here and had positive effects from methylphenidate.

He is unemployed which likely means he has no doctor or that high end health care if the sort you’re assuming is not something he has access to. Poor Americans can go to the ER, but talking to someone with knowledge and capacity to prescribe psychotropics is not how this works.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#490

Post by mariusor »

Been unemployed a little over one year. Backend engineer/SRE with 20+ years of experience somewhere in Western Europe.

I didn't scatter shot submit my CV to everything under the sun - tried to keep it in my current area of residence, with the technology stack that I actually want to pursue.

I applied for around 4-5 jobs a month (which included tuning CV and cover letters for each of them). I got around 10 interviews during all this time, so far being rejected across the board, mostly with pretty risible reasons. This number includes both rejections after first screening call, or after technical interviews. (As an example, one company - to which I reached from one of the HN jobs threads - rejected me for doing a manual Pythagoras calculation for computing some coordinates instead of using a library.)

In the past month or so I've finally started getting more invitations back instead of being ghosted or getting generic "we're moving on with more suitable candidates", so things are looking more promising.

Overall I'm not worried, I have a good support network, and I keep preoccupied with open source stuff.

The only problem is that the latest rejections kinda dented my self esteem a little, but I hope that's temporary. :)

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