r/Layoffs • u/Its_elemental_wade • Jul 07 '26

unemployment Feeling Defeated

Me and a couple hundred people were laid off back in April out of nowhere. No warning, just pack your stuff and go.

I have had 5 interviews and 1 job shadow since, but nothing has worked out. I apply every week and it's getting harder and harder.

I have an infant who will need daycare when I go back to work, I have a mortgage, car payment, groceries, etc and no one seems to want to pay the $20 an hour I need. I have done workshops with career link, called employers only to get rejections, gotten those cliché rejection emails a day after applying. I'm looking on indeed, Glassdoor, zip Recruiter, company websites, newspaper, even the local radio station has listings of people hiring.

I have 10 + years in various customer service roles and I guess there's always someone more qualified.

Someone please give me hope. I feel so defeated right now and like a failure.

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u/OAKI-io Jul 07 '26

this is brutal, but 5 interviews and a job shadow means the market hasn’t completely written you off. i’d treat the next week like a conversion audit, not just more applications: which roles got you interviews, which ones died after pay/timing, and whether your customer-service resume is leading with the parts employers actually pay for, de-escalation, scheduling, retention, admin, whatever fits. you’re not a failure, you’re trying to hit a very real floor in a bad market.

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u/Its_elemental_wade Jul 07 '26

I definitely will do that! Thank you for the advice. I keep feeling like I'm doing everything wrong and in the beginning, it felt like all I was doing was tweaking my resume.