Laid off. Have now been rejected by three jobs I'm qualified for with a form letter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in the same boat at 45. FWIW, I look to my faith tradition for perspective and to stay off the emotional roller-coaster as much as possible. My whole role in the tech sector pretty much got obliterated, so I'm starting over.

If you were in tech you have $$$, just retire.

lol. I wish that were true.

[Anonymous]

When I was your age during the 2009 recession, it took me 5 months after layoff to get 2 full-time job offers, one of which was unsuitable and 30% below original salary. I had outplacement counseling.

It's a numbers game. Keep making high-quality contacts and sending in tailored apps.

If I were you I'd do that trick where you hide keywords in tiny white font at the bottom of the resume so the bots find it when they crawl your materials.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm in the same boat at 45. FWIW, I look to my faith tradition for perspective and to stay off the emotional roller-coaster as much as possible. My whole role in the tech sector pretty much got obliterated, so I'm starting over.

Same, I leaned on belief. I told myself there was a plan for everything to work out, I just didn’t know when or how so I needed to follow every lead, apply to everything I was qualified for and not lose hope. It all worked out! Although there were hard days, in the end it all seemed meant to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in the same boat at 45. FWIW, I look to my faith tradition for perspective and to stay off the emotional roller-coaster as much as possible. My whole role in the tech sector pretty much got obliterated, so I'm starting over.

Same, I leaned on belief. I told myself there was a plan for everything to work out, I just didn’t know when or how so I needed to follow every lead, apply to everything I was qualified for and not lose hope. It all worked out! Although there were hard days, in the end it all seemed meant to be.

Not OP but thanks, this is helpful. I am OP’s age and have been looking for 6 months. Only 2 interviews so far and no offers. Very hard to be positive and hard to also be as focused as I want with 2 little kids.

[Anonymous]

Is this a joke? 3 jobs. If you read the book
“What color is my parachute” which is a great book by the way. Take it out from Library. BTW libraries have career sections with a lot of great books.

But I this a numbers game. Each method recruiters, personal connections, employee referrals, job postings or even just sending a resume in cold all have different success ratios. But in reality when unemployed you got 10 hours a day. Do them all.

I literally applied 1,000 jobs my last search and reached out to 3,000 people I used every method.

I wake up 6 am search new jobs apply to any see. Religiously reach out to 10 people a day in LinkedIn, have my Zoom meetings with my network, talk to recruited, post original content in LinkedIn, take LinkedIn learnings, get out network, I looked 50 hours a week.

Indeed, Glassdoor are also good.

[Anonymous]

Not enough people stress to their children the absolute importance of being able to get financially independent by the time you are 40

The market hates you after that sans a select few

And physically it is a grind to work after 40

It is hard to balance a full time job and making sure you are at optimal health after 40

Workouts take longer, recovery takes longer, rest takes longer

So if you want to maintain a social life, health, physical optimization, rest and relaxation, you can’t be putting in 7-9 hrs a day working

[Anonymous]

You've got this.

[Anonymous]

3 rejections? Come on. It could be over if you keep up that pace. I think I applied to over 50 jobs for my first job during gfc and then probably 20+ to get my next, which ended up being through a recruiter

[Anonymous]

The key to being unemployed is to keep your chin up. Just keep truckin. Apply for jobs. Reach out to friends and peers.

[Anonymous]

42 is still very young. You have got this. Keep applying and networking.

[Anonymous]

At least you got rejection letters. Many companies don't even bother with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm in the same boat at 45. FWIW, I look to my faith tradition for perspective and to stay off the emotional roller-coaster as much as possible. My whole role in the tech sector pretty much got obliterated, so I'm starting over.

No one cares about your “faith tradition”. Deeply unhelpful post.

[Anonymous]

Only being rejected by 3 in two months means you're not applying to nearly enough.

Definitely work your network for referrals and intros, but you need to get wayyyyy more comfortable with rejection to make it through this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not enough people stress to their children the absolute importance of being able to get financially independent by the time you are 40

The market hates you after that sans a select few

I'm 39 and have been saving under the assumption since I was 21 that it would be very hard to replace my income after 50.

Unfortunately, I think you're right that the goalpost is moving even younger in many industries and with offshoring/automation of white collar jobs.

It is pretty tough to earn and save a lifetime's worth of money in 20 years in todays environment. I am deeply concerned about the financial and career prospects our kids and young adults will be facing. I think it is a time of massive change and will eventually be OK, but I feel like Gen Z and Gen Alpha are about to be caught in a really bad spot in the transition.

[Anonymous]

I’m sorry, OP. Getting laid off is so upsetting and stressful. I’ve been there.

When I was laid off, I kept my chin up by keeping work hours for job search. I attended networking events, researched jobs and companies, and sent off resumes.

I had to kiss a lot of frogs and have some strange interviews before finding a new job.

These days, I’d recommend leveraging your network and real humans to learn about jobs and get introductions. I did not do it that way in the old days and just got lucky that my resume found its way to the right person. I don’t think that would be as easy now.