When I was unemployed and job hunting for the first time, I revealed the inner workings of my search (and corresponding agony) in an epic six-part series. TL;DR, job searching sucks and I scienced the shit out of mine. I shared what worked and didn’t work for me, but spoiler alert: everyone is different and you should try everything.
Flash forward to 2024 and I found myself in the same situation when I was let go earlier this year: unemployed and job hunting. I had been in my agency marketing role for less than a year when I got the news: “Dan, today is going to be your last day.”
My second baby was a few months old and we just started her at daycare. My wife was returning to work from maternity leave. We had bills to pay. Rent was due. The stakes were high and I found myself at a major low.
Losing my job was like a punch in the stomach. Or maybe the face.
Having been down this road before, I’d built up resilience. I knew what I needed to do and I knew how to do it. I just didn’t want to. It’s hard work finding a job. It’s a full-time job finding a job. It sucks the life out of you if you’re not careful. And seeing that daunting path ahead of me, this was the last thing I wanted to do.
Sure, the journey is the destination and these moments in life are character-building. Bla bla bla. But when you like what you do and you just want to get paid to do it, putting yourself out there day in and day out just to get knocked down and pull yourself back up over and over is not my idea of a good time.
All that being said, I’m an optimistic dude. So I told myself what anyone would at a difficult crossroads: “This time, things will be different.” They had to be…right?
Boy, was I wrong.
The Black Hole Strikes Back
I call the digital job search a black hole because you send applications into a void, with zero visibility into what’s happening on the other end.
Type, click, send. Whoosh!
Nothing.
Time is frozen in a black hole, so job applicants end up feeling like Matthew McConaughey in True Detective (if you know, you know).
And in 2024, it’s worse than ever. Employers have been flooded with applications — 250 applications per posted role seems to be the average this year, with some jobs getting hundreds or thousands of applicants. Of those 250 applicants, 4–6 get an interview, which means every shot you’re taking has a 2% chance of scoring. The odds are not in our favor, people.
I regularly heard stories about new job postings receiving so many applications in the first 24–48 hours, the employer had to take down the job post. This leaves recruiters and hiring managers with an overwhelming amount of applicants to choose from, making your genuine qualifications seem meaningless. With an average of 100–200+ applications needed to get a role today, this dynamic creates a compounding numbers game where more job searchers are forced to apply for more jobs, creating more work and more competition for everyone.
It sounds dramatic, but a recent Bloomberg article reveals the true stakes for professionals who lose their jobs, writing that a job search ranks “among life’s most stressful experiences” and “sudden job loss can be financially destructive and carries the risk of long-term professional damage.”
Same, But Worse
My job search struggles were echoed by the 200,000+ who were let go in 2023 and 100,000+ who drew the short straw in their company’s Reduction In Force (RIF) in 2024.
Five years ago, I applied to 217 jobs over 122 days of unemployment. This time, I applied to nearly 300 jobs over 207 days of unemployment. So, less jobs applied per day on average, but I was unemployed for about 3 months longer. Don’t worry, I didn’t obsessively track my metrics like I did last time around. I took a friend’s advice, ditched the full-funnel tracking and just trusted my process. Thanks, Danny. Good call, bud.
Everything I wrote about in 2019 is still true. Five years later, the world got messier, tech got techier ( 👋🏻 AI), we got covid, inflation, recessionary concerns, multiple international wars, and an unpredictable election year. Not to mention, a major decline in VC funding (from $172.8 billion in 2022 to $66.9 billion in 2023). Even more on the nose, early 2024 saw mass layoffs following big tech’s “year of efficiency” which seemed to give every company permission to “trim the fat”.
As the Magic 8 Ball goes, “Outlook not so good.”
Beyond macroeconomic factors and increased competition, here are some of the other things that were the same but worse for me this time around:
- rejection — nothing prepares you for the constant letdown.
- rampant ghosting — even when people reached out to me.
- fake job listings — I have no idea if I ran into this but it came up a lot.
- lengthy job applications — does anyone even read through your application?
- homework assignments — contrarian POV here, but I don’t actually hate these. I did a few but didn’t have to do one for the job I got.
- close calls — the ones that got away? Where I was a finalist but didn’t get the gig? Those stung.
- feeling like a failure — see bullet #1.
My Other Job
I said I was unemployed, right? While I had the unemployment checks to prove it, I didn’t say I wasn’t working. Not in the haha I ripped off the government kind of way. No, I was parenting. My second kid, Rye, was only 4 months old when I was back on the hunt. We soon pulled her out of care and transitioned to daddy daycare with Dan.
So I applied to jobs and interviewed during nap times and between breaks in my employed wife’s robust meeting schedule. I was squeezing my job search in between morning daycare dropoff for my toddler Elle, afternoon daycare pickup, nap time, post-nap activity time, dinner, bath, and bedtime routine.
A Contradiction
As my job hunt went on, I would question myself endlessly. How many jobs did I apply to today? Am I ever going to find the “one”? What am I really looking for? What is my dream job, anyway? Does that matter? Do I matter? Why is this taking so long? What’s wrong with me? Why is this so hard?
My search felt like a giant oxymoron; a massive contradiction. Every advantage was also a disadvantage. Focusing on remote roles meant more jobs I could apply to. But more people losing their jobs meant more competition. Having a broad background in marketing that spanned industries meant more jobs I was a fit for. Yet, being a jack of all trades meant I could just as easily be a master of none.
Finding Fit
Of the many factors that contributed to my lengthy search, finding the right fit was one of the most fickle parts of the formula. Like Baskin Robbins ice cream, marketing comes in many flavors—probably more than the 31 flavors the chain is famous for. Marketing, digital marketing and even growth / performance marketing (what I do) are all broader than you’d imagine. Slice them by B2B or B2C, then by industry (education, fashion, kids, pets, food and bev, etc.), then by goal (purchase, subscription, email acquisition, etc.) and you get thousands of opportunities to sift through. In fact, there are 2,500 remote “growth marketing” jobs on LinkedIn as of writing.
I have no idea where the road is taking me when I’m on it.
Even when I tried to niche down to my two industries of choice, e-commerce or media, I was met with a) an overflowing supply of jobs to apply to (see above), b) a lot of rejection and c) a lot of nothing (sometimes not even a templated email). Picking a lane can be so helpful in narrowing things down. You live and die by your filters on a job hunt, whether that’s a salary, title, location, company size, funding round, or anything I’ve already mentioned. Yet, every time I search, I struggle to find my fit. Inevitably, I land somewhere great that feels just right. And I’m incredibly thankful for that. But I have no idea where the road is taking me when I’m on it.
Finding fit has been trickier for me than for others. Perhaps it’s because I like too many things and can’t decide. Perhaps it’s my fear of missing out on the right opportunity. Maybe it’s my “diverse” set of experiences that many recruiters and hiring managers can’t quite put their thumb on. Maybe the other candidate had an inside track through a referral. Maybe there was an internal hire. Maybe it’s my resume (doubt it). Maybe it’s my talk track?
Sometimes, I feel it in my gut — this opp just isn’t a good fit. Other times, I recognize my shortcomings: like when a company is looking for someone to manage paid search and SEO and while I have those skills, they’re not my only focus.
A lot of the time, it’s the competition: someone else was just better. Or there was a stronger candidate who was more deeply qualified. Or they just spoke to their experience in a more directly applicable way. More than once, I excelled as a candidate but the company didn’t hire anyone.
On top of all of those scenarios, there were a lot of occasions where I just didn’t have a clue.
The Invisible Hand
When I recognized my analysis paralysis, I learned to let go and let the invisible hand guide me (at least that’s what I call it) to the right job. The way the invisible hand guides consumers to pull out their wallets at the price point they’re willing to bear, I let my process guide me. Or, as my therapist told me, “all those nos make way for the right yes.”
I share this as a counter to a more typical approach: find the top companies where you want to work and go after them hard. Or filter your search more precisely and wait until that role comes around. Being specific is valuable. Knowing exactly what you want is ideal. In my case, things weren’t working out as planned, so I had to broaden my options and see where it led.
What Worked & Didn’t Work In My Monthslong Job Search
If you’re still here, I wrote another piece: What Worked & Didn’t Work In My Monthslong Job Search.
If you’re struggling on your job search, connect with me on LinkedIn and shoot me a message. Let’s chat. I’m not a career coach, but I want to help.
