Let me start. I previously resided in a north eastern US state, I had a good job, a good partner, a nice place to live. I thought I’d made it.
I started having medical problems, discovered I carry certain genes and such. Was having trouble getting them diagnosed, but such is life.
Then my good partner left me, I lost my job of a year and a half, and I thought a fresh start near family would be good. I decided to move cross country. Which I regret, I want to leave but now I don’t have the resources so here I am.
I just can’t seem to get a job, I’ve applied at over 2000 jobs in the last 6 months. My previous job was managing the entire technology infrastructure for an IT company. The one before that was the IT Manager for a small company. I have the experience, but I can’t get a job.
Last night I swerved to avoid deer in the road, got stuck in the mud and had to get towed out. I’m flat broke, I can’t get a job, I have nothing. I lost everything. And I don’t see myself ever recovering it. I have the experience and skill to do at least mid and some high level IT work.
I desperately want a remote job because my car is not reliable, my partner got the good car sadly. I’ve certainly made mistakes, I’ve certainly failed. But I don’t think I deserve this much pain and suffering. I have nothing, I’ve lost it all. I can’t find a job. I don’t dare look for a partner while I’m a dead broke loser, so I have no one to share with.
Anyways, I apologize for whining and crying, I know we’re all going through things. But I have nowhere to vent and it just keeps getting worse and I honestly don’t think I’ll ever get out.
Love you all. Thanks for reading. Please think of me when you get a chance and send good vibes my way.
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Oh this happened to me last year, minus some details and add some others. Hope someone here has some advice because 988 didn’t help and I gotta stop crying before lunch is over
Edit actually here’s some advice I’m giving myself: see a therapist because internet strangers don’t know shit
Something that helped me was aggressively policing how long I allowed myself to think about things I can’t solve right now. I shrunk my world down to actionable items on a really granular level. Sometimes it’s just “take a shower”, “take out the trash”.
The next step after that was analyzing where effort was harming my mental health. Thinking about things beyond my control had to be discouraged. Sometimes the correct move is to let things happen. Sometimes your actionable item doesn’t appear until those things play out.
I’m not saying you can’t be upset about stuff, but if you can recognize those times when your emotion is actually harming your situation, now you have something you can work on.
Big agree with Bigoldmustard. In your situation, downsizing and focusing can go a long way. Force your big human brain into lizard mode and keep reminding yourself some things are outside of your control and current ability. Your primary goal is to keep going long enough to pounce on something better.
Also, if you’re in the US look into the Modest Needs charity and see if you qualify for some relief - getting your car reliable again will open more opportunities for employment, even if it’s not within your career. Take a job that gets you some steady work and always keep looking for a job in your field.
Life has stretches of suck, but nothing lasts forever.
Being present is massively helpful with mental health.
Depression is looking back and anxiety is looking forward. Speaking very generally of course.
If you can ground yourself in present (even for a few minutes) you’ll realise you are okay right now.
See a professional. Meds work for the vast majority of people. Get diagnosed and fix other ND conditons you might have that aren’t directly related to depression/anxiety. It helps the sleep which helps the stress which helps everything else. CBT and good coping mechs only goes so far.
2000 applications without a job says either resume is poorly done or you’re bad at interviews. If the callback rate is less than 1 in 20, improve the resume, otherwise improve your interview skills.
Hit the gym so your brain starts thinking better, also it obviously helps with a lot of downward feelings.
IT is in a relative downturn right now. It’s hard to get a job when most companies are firing their IT teams.
At this point, the name of the game is to keep sending resumes, so that when the general economics swing back, you’d be first in line for a job. But this isn’t the time to be blaming someone’s resume writing / interviewing skills.
EDIT: If there’s something to be done about the resume, then the real way to help with that is to read the guy’s resume and talk them through it through private email. Again, these are things not meant for public discussion on a public Lemmy. In theory, I could see that you have a point that maybe the dude’s resume needs some work. But “working on a resume” isn’t something that we can realistically do unless we start swapping emails / finding a discussion through more private channels.
Incorrect. The tech sector had had a record number of layoffs (https://layoffs.fyi/) and hasn’t had any time to recover. In addition, a US law, section 174, took effect this year and changes taxes for software engineers and certain other tech workers.
I personally have never had issues finding work, but I have been unemployed for over 6 months. This is despite the fact I have been in the industry for over 2 decades, despite having tons of qualifications and even former employers recommending me.
My only bit of advice to offer is to modify your resume to make yourself look slightly less experienced and willing to take a lower role.
Tech industry is tough right now. Keep your head up. Things will ease.
Lie on your resume. As long as you can talk through it. I guarantee they’re lying to you on the JD.
I was unemployed for nearly a year recently. IT work is inundated with talent pool bc of the FAANG downsizing about a year ago. . It’s coming back but slowly.
Sounds like you’re depressed which has the awesome side effect of altering how you would typically approach and perform in an interview - not in an ideal way. Being cognizant of that may help. Maybe you’re not but I know when I had the numbers you’re talking about sending resumes etc, I was pretty down. Each rejection took a little toll. Maybe try changing your resume up a bit, and practice soft skills for interviewing? Might help take time away from feeling bad about it-which I get.
Microsoft just fired like 1100 employees from the Blizzard/Activision section. Google just laid off a few weeks ago. Amazon just laid off a bunch of Twitch workers a few weeks ago.
We’re still in the middle of a FAANG downturn. Its even worse than last year. Honestly, getting an IT job in these conditions will be hell. But if that’s your skillset, there’s not much to do but continue to send out resumes, maybe send your resume to a resume workshop / people willing to improve it with you.
Microsoft just fired like 1100 employees from the Blizzard/Activision section. Google just laid off a few weeks ago. Amazon just laid off a bunch of Twitch workers a few weeks ago.
shit… haven’t been paying attention then. damn. good call- i stand corrected. i thought there was a slight uptick in jobs but i guess that was leading up to the fall.
why does q4-q1 always suck in this industry? oh yea … gotta show profitability for taxes. right.
Recent changes in tax laws and reporting, and how IT workers get taxed.
In particular, whether or not information technology counts as R&D expenses or as CapEx, which has tax implications.
The video game industry is at almost 6000 people laid off industrywide. I think I read the other day that we’re not even out of January and it’s like 70% of 2023’s total already. It’s a tough market everywhere that’s for sure
I was in a similar position a while ago. Left my marriage of 10 years due to it becoming toxic and abusive. Lost my job, house, car Etc.
The thing I’ve learnt is that life is long and a lot can change over a couple of years.
You just have to keep pushing on and things will resolve themselves eventually.
That’s not to say it’s easy. But it’s completely doable. You’ll look back in 5 years time and wonder what all the fuss was about.
I’m in tech. Have been for 20 years. Lemme get a look at that resume. After, you can call me and we talk. Maybe I can find where you’re falling out.
Just sent it to you, thank you, any advice is welcome!
To add to what someone else said, try to get some exercise. It can be free, and your brain needs some endorphins in there to help counteract all that pain. It won’t be a solution or anything, but it can help a little with the symptoms. Jogging, a pushup/situp regimen, whatever works for you. Can kinda give you a physical outlet for some of the pain sometimes.
Good luck.
I’ll agree with the exercise comments too. Its important from a psychological perspective. It may not feel like you’re doing much, but… you need it in all cases. When you’re feeling down like this, you can often forget to work on the basics (aka: eating healthy, working out, hygiene, and other health).
Sending good vibes to you. Vent away.
If you respond well to ideas, I found the Chinese philosophical text the Zhuangzi comforting when life is filled with negative changes.
It’s encourages remembering that the world operates at multiple scales, that human concerns are just one scale, and has a lot to say about coping with inevitable and unexpected transformations. Even in translation it’s sparkling - witty, brilliant, silly and logical.
But I know not everyone finds comfort in words.
Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts. I’m fine with sharing my resume with whoever would like to look (no email needed, it’s hosted on my website). I have applied at the lowest of low tech jobs and completely unrelated jobs but yes, as someone below pointed out my resume is probably too experienced for them to hire me for it.
Sending you positive thoughts. It won’t always be as bad as it is today - that’s hard to see when you’re suffering from it though.
I hope you can catch a break, take some time to just tread water as you can.
Lean on friends, and find anything to help keep your head above water. It’s okay to be struggling - it’s okay to be having a hard time. Look for the people who can help you get through things. It’s good to talk to people about how you are feeling.
You haven’t lost it all, and I know some people who are in worse positions than you. Maybe it’s bad to compare though because when you compare yourself to… Well other or your past self, it’s not really a good thing or a path to positivity.
I recognize that the broad economy for IT has degenerated in the past year, and as a fellow technology professional it worries me too about this situation. I don’t think people would consider ‘just’ 6 months outside of work in a tech downturn to be too much of a black mark on the resume. I’ve certainly have seen worse.
Support, both financial government support, and family support, are needed in these situations to help you out. In my example for people I know, living in with family/friends is a big $$$ saver and can provide the runway you need to fly again. EDIT: In this case, the family environment for this individual was toxic, so his healing didn’t really help until we (his friends) took him into a spare bedroom / etc. etc. Even a loving family could be toxic and unhelpful to growth.
When you combine this toxic family + PTSD (two tours to Iraq 2003 war), this healing period realistically takes years. But as I said before, I dont think you are in that bad of a situation so I’d think you’d get better faster than my friend did. But even after multiple years, he leans on me and my family for a degree of support.
I don’t think internet help is very good or useful. But hopefully you can find someone in your social group who can offer you the support you need right now. Dont feel ashamed, we all need a pickup every now and then. Don’t try to do everything yourself. If no one in your social group can offer long-term support and help, that’s another unlucky turn and I’d compare you to one of my uncles who lived through his 30s / 40s in a similar boat as yours but had to pull himself out of it by himself (or at least, grandma wasn’t very supportive and was probably counterproductive to his healing). There’s just too many unknowns to fully understand your situation over the internet, so I really doubt my ability to help you over the internet.
Hey friend. What’s your skill set?
I have three primary skill sets -
First, tech, everything from hardware to software, switchs, Meraki, Unifi, WatchGuard, RMM software, Veeam, backup disaster recovery setup/maintenance, failure redundancy, domain admin, server (Windows and Linux) admin, web hosting. Azure, M365, traditional office, HTML/CSS/Javascript/PHP/Python/Powershell/BASH, etc etc
Second, moving industry. I can’t physically do the moving anymore, but I was a driver and crew lead for over a year. Afterwards I was the sales/estimation office assistant manager. I still did my own estimates, but also reviewed all outgoing estimates and handled any customer issues with our estimates. I also handled the commercial contracts.
Third, I worked for a Steelcase dealer and did vendor pricing, discounting, freight rates, POs, etc.
Well, it seems that you have good IT operations support experience, so it might be a CV/resume issue. If you don’t mind sharing it, I can take a look at it for you. My Mastodon account is @JoMiran@noc.social.
Wow, that’s a lot to process. It’s good you have family at least while sorting things out. Any friends or friends of family that can help you with job leads/referrals?
A lot of people seem to be reporting sudden issues with 1000s of applications and no bites these days! Not sure what that’s all about. Hopefully the tend turns around soon. (I’m sure you’re checking into anything you can do to improve your applications’ likelihood to get picked up.)
Good vibes friend. This world is cold and cruel, it isn’t you and it isn’t on you.
