'I have admitted defeat': A 1.5-year job hunt has left a young graduate feeling their career is over before it began — Reddit responds with honesty and solidarity
Exhausted woman lying on desk while using laptop late at night, depicting job hunting fatigue.
A post on Reddit’s r/recruitinghell talked about how, after 1.5 years of applications, referrals, final-round interviews, networking, resume tailoring, and career fairs, the original poster went into a severe depression in July and reduced their application pace.
Now, at the end of August, they have described admitting defeat indefinitely. The job hunt has, in their words, “completely destroyed my self-worth, confidence, and any semblance I had of an identity.” They are still housed only because of family support. They do not see hope of employment. They are watching their peers become as hopeless as they are.
“I just wanted to let this out of my head,” they wrote. “I wanted to write somewhere that I’m just done. I don’t know what to do anymore.”
What the thread said
The responses were not full of advice. They were full of people who understood.
“I’m in the same spot, friend. I’m almost at two years. I have nothing to add but I feel you. It’s the most miserable I’ve ever been in my life. And it’s like there’s no way out,” one Redditor sympathised.
“I deeply sympathise. I’ve been at this for almost two years. Don’t have any advice, but if nothing else, I hope you know you aren’t alone,” another comment stated.
“At this point I have a year-long career gap which is just getting longer each passing day and I don’t know how to cover that for the future,” one netizen added.
One commenter offered the gentlest possible reframe of the situation: “OP, it’s not your fault the market has become what it is. If you can just take a break, I get it, there’s more stress in thinking you’re not doing enough, but don’t beat yourself over it.”
The most honest and perhaps most useful response came from someone who acknowledged the reality of what the original poster was feeling while gently pushing back on the finality of it: “And yet, here you are. You’re still standing. Still as capable as you were when you were employed. Sure, your ego has taken a bit of a beating and your bank account more so. And it's great to come on Reddit and vent that you’re done, it’s over, and you’re not going to look anymore. But you will. You’ll soldier on and eventually recover because quitting is just not an option.”
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If there is one thing the thread offers that matters most, it is this: the original poster wrote it somewhere, and people heard it. That is not nothing. It is, in fact, the beginning of something.
That matters. And so does getting help that goes beyond a Reddit thread.
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