The Long Job Search features stories and advice from women who got hired after a prolonged job search. In sharing their stories, we aim to support and inspire those navigating similar situations during their job hunt.

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I have over 15 years of experience as a Product Manager and Product Strategist for startups and scale-ups. Before transitioning to product management, I worked as an IT Manager and Project Manager. However, I have removed all of that from my resume as it would otherwise be quite lengthy and age me (I just turned 59).

My (almost) year-long job hunt

I was laid off from my last job at the end of October 2023.

Although my job was only a one year contract, the company was doing so poorly that 3 of us were supposed to be laid off in April but our boss fell on his sword and took a pay cut to save us.

In January of 2024, twenty more people got laid off, so really all I did was miss out on a salary for two months as I was either going to finish my contract or get the chop anyway.

I just started my new job 3 days shy of a year being unemployed.

I applied for 586 jobs in that year - all of them remote.

The biggest challenge was getting an interview. I had 32 companies interested in me - 10 I turned down as they were actually not remote, or had TERRIBLE Glassdoor reviews. Some of the “interviews” were just emails asking me a few things, or taking the weirdo tests (no I don’t generally have to figure out what the next number in a series is for my job).

Getting ghosted by HR after the first interview was common. The worst was when you made it a couple of rounds and they pump up your ego with “your resume is amazing”, “you are absolutely moving onto the next round” etc.

I made it to the final round of one company and I was the second choice. I was a bit sad but the whole process was excellent so I didn’t let it get me down.

Managing my mental health and finding hope amid the chaos

At first, it was great as I was decompressing from my last job, and I was taking a digital transformation course for a few months. But I only had 6 months of unemployment benefits so every month that I didn’t make it past the first round of an interview I would feel like I was going to go crazy.

That crazy feeling disappeared after my benefits ran out as I now had no artificial deadline to meet.

The absolutely best thing for my mental health was reading both r/recruitinghell and r/recruiting.

Recruitinghell while sad, made me understand we were all experiencing the exact same thing. So it wasn’t me, it was them.

The one story that was particularly helpful was from a guy who had worked at a FAANG for over 10 years and was trying all the things - networking, rewriting his resume with all the keywords for every job, cover letters, DMing the hiring manager etc - and he was getting nothing.

Recruiting was also great as the recruiters talked about how they were not using AI to rank resumes. Most companies don’t pay for anything like that. The recruiters generally rely on keywords and boolean searches.

I started asking my interviewers how many resumes they had and how they found mine. “We searched for fintech”, “we searched for startup”.

The big takeaways for me that really helped me not get depressed too often were:

• It’s a crapshoot if they even SEE your resume
• Volume is the answer. Apply to at least one job a day.
• Don’t bother doing any of the hoop-jumping of rewriting resumes or networking. It’s not going to help.

From a personal point of view, the endless days with nothing to do were hard. Especially if you have no money and nobody to play with.

I lay in bed and read a lot of novels. I gained 3 pounds. I did make a new friend through BumbleBFF so that was nice.

But the optimistic days outweighed the depressed days hugely. When you can apply for 3 jobs in a day hope just springs eternal!

How taking a break helped me reclaim optimism in my job search

I would search for a job for about 2 or 3 hours first thing in the morning and then just go about my day.

I never stopped searching for a job, but I did take a week off from interviewing (I bailed on a few) because I couldn’t muster the energy to care about a job that I would interview for and then hear nothing back about.

That week really helped so that when I did get another interview a few weeks later I was back to optimistic.

Budgeting for a year of unemployment

I saw the writing on the wall (how is a $14 million loss a year sustainable?) so I saved and saved and saved prior to the layoff and had over a year's worth of money.

I had a week of severance and then 6 months of unemployment benefits so I knew I could do a year and a half without a job.

I gave myself $100 every two weeks for “fun” and I was doing fine with very little credit card debt until my cat died and then I adopted another one. Pets are a pricey hobby!

Tracking applications and staying organized with a high-volume approach

I typically looked at about 30 job boards a day. I would email myself the jobs, then go through my emails, find the job on the company website, review it and if I was the right fit I would apply for it.

I would have about 5 jobs a day that I thought I could apply for and usually only one was actually right for me. I would copy the job posting into a Google document and save it with the date.

I had a spreadsheet where I would put the company name, job title, which board I found it on, the salary range posted and/or the salary range I provided, location (in case it was remote but they really wanted someone in Toronto), the version of my resume that I sent, and any notes.

Prior to applying, I had to ALWAYS search my spreadsheet to see if I had applied to the company before (I usually had) and if it was the same job, had they auto-rejected me, etc.

I never really pivoted from my volume volume volume strategy but I was constantly trying to find new job boards - niche ones in blockchain, climate, venture capital etc.

That said, pretty much every single one of my interviews came from jobs posted on LinkedIn or Indeed.

Why I skipped networking

I reviewed all of my connections on LinkedIn and felt that nobody could really help me as the layoffs in tech were just too many.

I did not put Opentowork on my profile as I thought it would make me look desperate.

Just apply and move on

My thinking is just apply for the job - what are they going to do, not get back to you? Who cares! So that attitude permeated the autorejections. Whatevs dudes I don’t even remember applying to you - that was so two weeks ago.

You CANNOT get married to a job posting. You may never hear back from them. Just apply and move on.

There were a couple of rejections from interviews that still sting as I was actually perfect for them. But then there were a bunch that didn’t sting as I could tell the company wasn’t right for me, or they clearly weren’t buying what I was selling when we met.

I am an overpreparer for interviews and I think that helps do well but does it get you the job in the end? It probably helps make it to the final round but if they like someone better than you, then you can’t do anything about that.

My advice for me and anyone reading this is to just be yourself. If you fake it you won’t get the job, if you are the real you you also won’t get the job. So just be yourself - it’s easier.

⭐ Landing the job

I could tell the market was beginning to heat up as I kept seeing success stories of people getting jobs, more job postings, and continued interest rate cuts.

Mine was just luck. Luck that they saw my resume. Luck that being my freewheeling swearing personality was appreciated. Luck that I pushed back in an interview about a topic and they were looking for someone who would push back.

Final words of advice?

I would say stick to your money guns. You will apply for jobs that pay 25% less and you will never hear from them. You will apply for ones in your range and never hear from them. You will apply for ones that pay 25% more and never hear from them.

Pick a specific time block a day to search and apply and then walk away from it.

Find something to do all day. The worst for me was the aimlessness.

Volume is your friend as is fearlessness. If you think you would like the job and would be good at it just apply.