How to find a job in 2024

Or not!

Desperation will drive you to do crazy things. I've been applying to jobs daily for months to little success and the other week I did something extreme: post on LinkedIn. While I’ve used LinkedIn regularly over the past year for its job search function, I’ve never used LinkedIn in the way its most active users do, which is to write long posts about SUCCESS and STRATEGY and THE GRIND in a cadence that is truly exclusive to the platform. This is a place where you can see that someone you went to middle school with got a new job at Amazon and also see a CEO from an AI toilet startup doling out advice on how to hire a more diverse staff.

I decided, in a fit of said desperation, to put on a little LinkedIn cosplay outfit to see if that would help me land a job. I wrote a post about how difficult and demoralizing it is to find a job, how long and arduous the process is, which is all true. I thought maybe a couple dozen people would see it, and maybe if I was lucky, one of them would message me and be like “so sorry for your troubles but luckily I have the perfect job just sitting here for you!” Instead, roughly 950 people commented on the post with some variation of “I feel exactly the same" or “this is the worst job market I’ve ever seen in my life.” Several people said they’ve had a harder time finding a job now than during the 2008 financial crisis. 

A lot of people commended my "positive attitude" about the situation, which I guess is only a testament to my writing skills because I cannot emphasize how negative my attitude is about this whole thing. I got a couple dozen messages, mostly from strangers, saying how much they related to what I wrote, or wishing me luck. A few people gave me vague leads or sent me links to jobs. I got a couple of offers to work for free. Someone who works at LinkedIn sent me a link to access 6 free months of LinkedIn premium, so I can search for even more jobs and also use AI.

Over the past year, I've applied to jobs at colleges, government offices, nonprofits, large corporations, small businesses, and news outlets. I've applied to jobs that are well below my skill set and well above it. I've gotten to the first, second, and third rounds of interviews. I once had a second-round interview at an elite university where they asked me to complete a writing test and then I didn't hear a word until I got an automated rejection three months later. I had a second-round interview for a low-paying job where six people were on the video call (also ghosted). There were so many interviews that made me feel briefly hopeful, that let me imagine a possible future life with this job the way one might imagine their life with a crush they see on the bus. And then a week would go by, then two, as I repeatedly Googled "following up after interview" and "following up second time after interview." 

I once replied to an ad on Craigslist for a dog daycare facility and when I went in after a call with the owner, the woman working had no idea who I was or what I was doing there but nonetheless let me into the back room to hang around 20 rambunctious dogs. Eventually I left and never heard from the owner again.

I applied for a job at a website that writes extensive how-to guides and had to write a test article called "How to eat healthy while depressed." The idea of completing such an assignment made me so depressed I almost didn't complete it. I did, but then got rejected the next week.

I once accidentally typed "Indeed" into the search bar on indeed.com.

I was hired on a contract by a clickbait chum website to write SEO articles about food and then promptly let go after four shifts with no explanation (you think I'm exaggerating but the email was two sentences long).

I got a job doing paid voter registration canvassing, which paid a hearty $25 an hour to stand on the street and ask people if they're registered to vote. On my first day, a supervisor said they don't have quotas because "that's illegal." After working there for 2-3 weeks, I was let go because I didn't reach a voter registration quota (they let a lot of people go).

Break for trees

For my birthday this past January, my boyfriend gave me a golden ticket that I could cash in at any time to quit my job. "No job lined up? We'll figure it out!" it said on the ticket. This was no small thing, because my boyfriend had been laid off three months earlier and still hadn't gotten another job yet. But he knew I was miserable and was offering a lifeboat. I had a job that I'd come to resent only a few months in because of terrible hours, the constantly increasing workload, and the difficult content of said workload. I complained so much to him, and to other people in my life, that I felt like it was taking over my life. I'd been applying to jobs and had a couple interviews but no luck. We both knew I wasn't actually going to cash in the ticket, at least not until he had another job. We've got a daughter (dog) to feed!  He did get a new job, and then I did decide to quit. He got laid off again immediately after, but neither of us saw that coming.

I felt a bit insane leaving my job because I'd done it once before — left a job with no backup plan lined up. I knew there would be months of job applications and a lot of rejection and the aimlessness of no consistent schedule. As I've explained in job interviews when asked about this, it's not something I want to make a habit of; it just happens! When I was 23, I got a full-time job at an alt-weekly newspaper thanks to my friend Alex. The pay was dismal and I worked a ton but I could kind of write whatever I wanted and I loved it. When I was 25, I wrote Alex's obituary and when I was 26 I quit my job at the newspaper because the grief was too overwhelming and distracting. Have you ever written an obituary for your friend to be published in the newspaper where you both worked, and then kept working there for 5 months? I don't recommend it. 

When I quit this year though, there wasn't an inciting, dramatic incident; just a constant frustration that grew each week that I worked there. Looking back now, even though it was only a few months ago, I feel myself thinking "it wasn't that bad, you didn't have to leave." And then I remember how much time I spent complaining when I worked there, how it was like a spigot I couldn't turn off. I worked so hard to maintain a mental work-life balance because at the last job, I failed to do that and my mental health crumbled like a crouton. I knew I had to leave and so did my friends and so did my family and so did my boss. 

I’m really not asking for much. I just want a job that pays me a reasonable wage with decent benefits and a fair amount of time off. I want my medications and doctors covered, and I want major holidays off. I don't think I've ever had a job where I was guaranteed off on Labor Day. I know some people reading this and thinking “okay so you just want a regular day job? Like a regular office job?” And other people are reading this and thinking “yes that’s my dream too!” It doesn’t need to be an office job, but yes, I want medical care and I also want to go on vacation.

I'm laying this all bare because I think this all points to a larger crisis about how employers treat people — both their workers and their prospective workers. Workers are disposable, and it doesn't matter if they're making a low hourly rate or a mid-level salary. Why would an employer feel the need to get back to your pleading emails if you don't have the possibility of monetary value to them?

My boyfriend and I have taken to calling this year of our life "our period of austerity." He has his own slew of job searching humiliations that I'll let him share on his own (and he has) but just know that they are as plentiful and bleak as my own. A year after his initial layoff, he finally secured another full-time job. Sure, it's in a completely different field and the pay is much less than the one he was laid off from, and sure, it's a temporary contract position lasting five months, but it's a full-time job with healthcare.

I obviously regret quitting my job all the time — who wouldn't! But I also think that in a healthy economy, you should be able to get a new job if you want. I think in a functioning economy, applying to hundreds of jobs would lead to successfully getting a new job. It shouldn't be such an outlandish idea to want a better working environment for yourself but it is. I think and hope that one day I will look back on this period and think "God, that was miserable but at least I cooked so much and hung out with my dog and had all the free time in the world." But then again is it really free if, wherever you are, no matter what you're doing, there's a nagging sensation that you should be home, on your computer, scrolling on LinkedIn.