I've been unemployed for over a year, with several years previous experience doing delivery and warehouse/logistical work. These are fields that are constantly in demand, because that's just how America's economy is structured. I have sent out so many applications that I have lost count, and I've never gotten past the second round of interviews. Whether I use LLMs to cater my resume or not, it doesn't matter. I've talked with multiple recruiters and career counselors, at the advice of parents, friends, and associates, to try and better structure my resume, and they've all come back and told me that it's a "very strong document", and that there was little to improve on with it. The notion of "just dust off your resume and apply to a bunch of places" has finally, truly failed, and the title of this article is 1000000% correct, because there's no logical or rational way that the job market could be so supposedly full of opportunities, yet so impossiblly hard to break into, even with years, or even decades of experience.

WE ARE IN HELL.

Now I'm back at University, getting a second degree in a field I'm legitimately interested in, and all anyone around me can think to say is "It's great that you're trying so hard to get a degree in a field you're interested in!... but what are the job prospects of that field? Have you talked to a career counselor about it? Are you sure you want to do this?" because the market is so fucked beyond belief that nobody can even think of pursuing a passion professionally anymore. We are in Hell. We are in Hell, and have been for years, and we won't be leaving anytime soon, to the detriment of all.

We are in Hell.

I met or exceeded every single requirement for all sorts of jobs that were "urgently hiring" and after 8 months of applying to a few jobs a day, i still had 0 interviews. I eventually got a job at a small local business i discovered was hiring through some small talk. The days of a smile and handshake aren't dead yet for some places.