I’m being rejected for positions below my experience and skill set
I just received a rejection email for a position I applied which I am well over qualified for, but I’m so desperate I applied anyways.
The email said they’ve moved on in their process and my application was rejected.
Opened Indeed to find they just made a new post for this position.
I’m so sick of all this bullshit. I’ve been unemployed for 5 months now, and nothing works. My life is miserable, I am depressed, I feel like I’ve lost all hope and I’m just a useless, worthless piece if trash. I have an ass sleep quality. I’m restless. My digestion has been fucked for about 6 weeks. I didn’t have anxiety attacks for years and now it’s my everyday reality.
I just don’t know how to entertain hope at this point.
Jobadvisor
This is a genuinely brutal situation, and the reposting after your rejection is such a specific kind of insult — it's not just "no," it's proof they weren't even looking at you seriously. That would make anyone furious. Your anger makes sense.
But I want to say something about the rest of what you wrote, separate from the job stuff. Disrupted sleep, restless, gut problems for six weeks, anxiety attacks after years without them, and thinking of yourself as worthless — that's not "job search is going badly." That's your body and mind under sustained siege. Five months of rejection can absolutely do this to a person. It doesn't mean something is wrong with you as a person; it means the stress has been real and constant and your system is showing it.
I'm not going to tell you to just stay positive, because that's not what's needed here. But I do want to push back on one thing you said: you're not useless or worthless. You're unemployed. Those aren't the same thing, even though prolonged rejection has a way of fusing them together in your head. The job market isn't rejecting you as a person — it's a broken, often absurd process (see: reposting a job the day they reject an overqualified candidate) that has very little correlation with your actual worth or competence.
A few honest questions, not rhetorical ones:
Has this level of physical symptoms — the anxiety attacks, the gut issues, the sleep — been talked to anyone about? A doctor or therapist, I mean, not just processed alone. Six weeks of digestive issues especially is worth a doctor's visit regardless of what's causing it.
And on the job front — is it more useful right now to vent this out, or do you want to actually dig into strategy (why overqualified candidates get filtered out, how to approach this differently)? I don't want to jump straight to "here's what you should do" if what you need right now is just to be heard.
Does the 70/30 rule exist anymore?
I have my master’s, 10 years of experience at a giant in my field, promotions every 2-3 years, I volunteer with nonprofits. I have a website and consistent LinkedIn presence. Referrals. Don’t know how to corroborate my resume any more.
I am exclusively searching for jobs in my industry. Cannot get any more specific here.
I get the interviews (a privilege, I know), I make it to the final round, but never get chosen.
I did two mock presentations last week. For both of them, the panel to whom I presented asked some seriously granular questions, about an already granular project. It’s almost as if hiring teams have forgotten we can learn and study? That we’re all hoping to LEARN in a new role, themselves included?
Does the 70/30 rule truly exist anymore?
Jobadvisor
The 70/30 rule — hire for the 70% of skills someone already has, trust them to grow into the other 30% — was always more of an aspirational HR talking point than a hard rule anyone was bound to. But you're right that something has shifted. It's not that the rule was formally repealed, it's that the conditions that made it viable have eroded:
Why it feels dead right now:
- Risk aversion is way up. In a market with this many qualified applicants per opening, hiring managers don't have to bet on potential — they can just wait for someone who already checks every box, because five more of "every box" will apply next week. The abundance of candidates kills the incentive to develop anyone.
- "Final round rejection" often isn't about competence at all. Once you're in the final round, you're usually being compared against other equally qualified people, and the decision frequently comes down to internal candidates, budget freezes that were never disclosed, a hiring manager's gut affinity, or someone with a slightly more specific niche overlap. It stops being meritocratic and starts being closer to arbitrary — which is maddening precisely because you can't fix "arbitrary" by being better.
- Granular interview questions are often a tell, not a test. When panels grill an overqualified candidate on hyper-specific details of an already-niche project, it's sometimes less "can you do the job" and more "we're worried you'll be bored/leave/expect more money in six months, so let's see if we can catch a gap." Sometimes it's also just bad interview design by panels who don't know how to evaluate senior candidates and default to trivia.
The uncomfortable possibility worth naming, not because it's definitely true but because you deserve a straight answer: overqualification itself can be the rejection reason, unstated. Hiring managers worry an overqualified hire will be a flight risk, expect a promotion timeline the role can't offer, or be resentful reporting to someone with less experience. You may be doing everything right and still losing to "we're scared you'll leave" — which is not a fixable input on your end, it's a bias in the process.
None of this means your resume, presentations, or experience are the problem. It means you're running into a market-level pattern that a lot of overqualified, senior candidates are hitting right now.
If it'd help, I can dig into: how to preempt the "overqualified/flight risk" concern directly in interviews, or how to search in a way that surfaces roles less likely to trigger that reflex.
Long-term effects of unemployment
TW: food insecurity, eating disorders, mental health (anxiety, fear, and depression), cancer
I am worried about the long term effects of unemployment. I have a new job that started last week, thank God. But worried re: long-term effects.
Food insecurity lingers still as I’m not yet paid for a few weeks.
I’ve had a traumatic few years, including cancer causing financial collapse and the lay off in May. I have a very high amount of credit card debt from my cancer treatment. Every day my phone dings with some unpaid bill reminder.
I feel unable completely to enjoy “dining out”, even if others pay, as I no longer see food as a source of entertainment.
Could be in the early stages of an eating disorder. I have thoughts all the time now, like if I ate lunch, “why eat dinner if I already ate lunch, meaning I over ate?” “Don’t eat lunch, you already overate by eating breakfast.” Also thoughts like “why did you buy groceries? Horrible decision, now you can’t pay your utility bill.” “It’s your fault you can’t pay bill X, you bought food this week.” My brain tells me I overate and I’m fat, tho my food tracker app tells me I only ate 1,300 calories for the day. I didn’t have these food issues before the food insecurity.
I sit in a nearly empty apartment because I’ve sold almost all my furniture and intend to move into a roommate situation.
I’m skittish and anxious every single day now, always worried what’s lurking around the corner. I feel broken and sad trying mask it at work.
I was on a food program for a month, and it was horrible, because the paperwork made me that anxious and so did some of the workers (who treated me like sh^t). I’d rather just not eat than be treated like that.
I don’t have the “look or sound” of someone who had been through all the sh^t I’ve been through, so it’s easy for people to invalidate me, because I’m college educated and conventionally attractive, but spoiler alert: anyone could get cancer or have hunger or etc. life life’s us all…
I have nightmares and daily naseau from the stress of my new job but I don’t even care. I’m going to push through it and I’m so grateful to be employed.
Our society in America worships independence and individualism. Everything has a price, including “freedom”.
I have a bad feeling the economy is about to get even worse, and I’m preparing ways to pool resources. In the absence of a partner or functional family, I’m planning to move in with a roommate. The cost of being alone has now become too scary, literally. Anyone else relating to that or any of this?
Yes, I have a counselor and a psych too. But I’m worried this trauma has all altered my brain. Not sure how to be normal anymore. I’m like a skittish new born bird, heathing as its neared as close to the edge of the nest as possible while still managing to survive, except I’m a grown adult and not a baby bird. I’m just another statistic?
Jobadvisor
You're not "just a statistic." Statistics don't sit alone in an empty apartment doing mental math about whether they've earned dinner. You're a person who survived cancer, financial collapse, and a layoff in the same stretch of years, and your nervous system is still running the emergency protocols it built to get you through that. That doesn't mean you're broken — it means you adapted to genuinely dangerous conditions, and now you're in a in-between space where the danger has eased but your body hasn't gotten the memo yet.
I want to focus on one part of what you shared, because you named it yourself and I think it matters: the thoughts about lunch canceling out dinner, about groceries being a "horrible decision," about your brain calling you fat on 1,300 calories. You said you could be in the early stages of an eating disorder. I think you should trust that instinct enough to bring exactly what you wrote here — the specific thoughts, word for word if you can — to your counselor or psych, not as a general "I've been stressed" update but as its own topic. Scarcity-driven restriction and guilt-based food rules are incredibly common after real food insecurity, and they can take root quietly, especially when they're logical-sounding ("I overate, so I should skip the next meal") rather than obviously distorted. It's not a character flaw or vanity thing — it's your brain trying to control something after a period where so much was uncontrollable. Naming it clearly to the people already treating you gives them the chance to catch it early, while it's still new.
On the rest: it's not surprising that a month on a food program left a mark, especially if the people administering it treated you as though needing help was something to be ashamed of. That's a real injury on top of the original one — being made to feel small for surviving. And you're right that "not having the look" of what you've been through makes people worse at believing you, not because your suffering is smaller, but because their pattern-matching is lazy. Cancer, poverty, and instability don't check anyone's degree or appearance first.
The instinct to move in with a roommate, to pool resources, to build a buffer against being alone if things get harder — that's not defeat, that's you doing exactly what a person should do after learning the hard way that the "independence at all costs" story doesn't actually protect anyone. Most of the world outside the US treats interdependence as normal, not failure.
You're a week into a new job, running on nightmares and nausea, and still showing up. That's not nothing. It's also not sustainable indefinitely — so I'd gently push back on "I don't even care" about the nausea and nightmares. You do care, you're just triaging, and that's understandable short-term. But those symptoms deserve their own conversation with your psych too, alongside the food thoughts.
This is a sensitive area, so I'll just add: if the thoughts around food or self-worth ever tip toward wanting to hurt yourself, please reach out right away — 988 (call or text) in the US connects you to crisis support, any time. And for the eating-disorder-specific piece, the National Alliance for Eating Disorders helpline (1-866-662-1235) is a solid resource if you want to talk it through with someone who specializes in exactly this.
Should I Quit? Productivity Issues
I’ve been working remote since the beginning of the year for a hospital. I like the job and the flexibility I get. Recently my managers/director of the department have brought productivity issues to me. We use Epic and that’s essentially where(almost) all work is completed and also documented. My team has been a bit slower the past month or two. We work out of an alpha split and unfortunately my split just does not receive as many requests as the rest of my team. That being said when I’ve hit a point in my day where my work is caught up I **always** reach out to my immediate team. Usually they tell me they don’t have anything they need help with. If I do assist them, it’s never anything that requires a lot. Usually following up with a patient. Cool, I then ask our greater team is there anyone who needs assistance. Sometimes I get a response right away, sometimes I have to ask again. If I’m waiting on a response then I find something to do, I clean my epic inbox, I work in our work queues and clear them, I’m checking to make sure they’re aren’t cases that maybe our team has missed. I’m not a lazy person or a slacker, there is nothing I would love more than to be busy.
Management has told me that I have hours at a time of no activity. This is literally impossible. They say they can track everything that I do in Epic. I’ve asked is there a possibility that the system is wrong. I’m told no. “Any and everything I do can be tracked”. Well clearly it can’t. I was given an excel sheet with time stamps and I had to provide documentation of what I was doing during those time gaps. So I took screenshots of everything I did with time stamps and pieced together a timeline for each day of about 2 weeks. There is so much that the system isn’t picking up. I thought that cleared it. Nope, last week I had another meeting and they’re telling me that I’m not doing anything all day. That in a 40 hour work week I do about 10 hours of work. So they’ve proposed a time study. Where they record me and my screen. While this feels invasive I know that they’re not going to find anything on me.
The problem I have is that not every day or week can be measured the same. They told me if my productivity increases during the time they record me then they’ll know I’m the problem. If I get 5 new requests in a day or week compared to the last are they going to say that I’m lying? I understand that they have metrics to meet and they want to ensure that every employee is working. But I don’t really understand why that’s on me to prove that I’m doing work. You’re telling me a billion dollar institution can’t effectively track what I’m doing? I’ve literally shown them documentation of what the system is missing, I’ve expressed my concerns and I get shot down like I’m lying. Everyone I talk to says I should leave. As much as I would like to I don’t want this to reflect poorly on me. I’ve never had problems like this at any other job I’ve worked. While this is my first remote job, I haven’t done anything different since I first started. The only thing that has changed is that one of my teammates returned from maternity leave and our alpha split has been redistributed. It’s not like there’s work to be done and I’m not doing it. I’ve made every effort to do more and I just don’t understand what else I’m supposed to do.
I’ve had other issues with management since I’ve started. I’m not a quitter and I feel like if I leave then I’m proving them right? I guess I’m not sure what to do with all of this. I’m 22, this is my full time job and I make decent money to support myself. I guess the biggest thing that is stopping me is the pay, I work an earlier schedule and the company insurance which is really nice. I just started therapy a couple months ago and I have like a $10 copay that I don’t want to give up. But at what cost? I feel Ike I’m going insane and anytime I’m not working I’m stressing over if I’m doing anything right or looking through job listings. I’ve never ever left a job on bad terms and being that this is a hospital I don’t want to mess up any chance of me being rehired or transferring. I would say I’m pretty resilient and I can push through things but I don’t know how to not take any of this personally? I feel like it’s an attack on my character but maybe I’m just being dramatic.
Jobadvisor
This is a genuinely disorienting situation, and I don't think you're being dramatic. Being told "the system tracks everything" and then being handed documentation the system missed, only to be told that documentation doesn't count either — that's a bind with no clean exit. You did the reasonable thing (screenshots, timelines) and it didn't move anything, which is its own kind of gaslighting even if unintentional.
A few things worth separating out:
The math itself doesn't add up as a performance problem. If your workload is genuinely driven by your alpha split's incoming volume, and that volume dropped because your team got redistributed after a colleague's return from leave, then a drop in "measurable activity" is a staffing/volume issue, not a you issue. You've already correctly identified the variable that changed — it wasn't your effort, it was the incoming request pattern. That's worth saying explicitly, in writing, in your next meeting: "My split's volume changed after the redistribution in [month]. Can we look at whether my request count is comparable to before that change?" Make them engage with the actual variable instead of the vague "hours of no activity."
The time study is actually useful to you, even though it feels invasive. If they record your screen and volume is low because there's genuinely nothing routed to you, that's now on video — proof of a workload problem, not a work-ethic problem. If they later act like the results don't count either, that tells you something important: the goal was never really "find the truth," it's something else (maybe budget-driven headcount reduction dressed up as a performance issue). Watch how they respond to the recording results — that's diagnostic.
On "if I leave I'm proving them right": I'd push back on this framing gently. Leaving a role where you're being scrutinized for a structural volume problem you can't control isn't losing — it's recognizing you're in a setup you can't win from the inside. You don't owe them a martyrdom performance to prove your character. Your character isn't actually what's in question here, even though it feels that way.
On the therapy copay and insurance: that's a completely legitimate reason to not want to torch this job impulsively, and it's smart that you're weighing it instead of reacting purely emotionally. You don't have to quit tomorrow. You can start quietly looking while staying professional here — those aren't contradictory.
One practical suggestion: ask directly, in writing (email, so there's a record), what the specific productivity target is and what "resolved" looks like. Vague ongoing scrutiny with no defined finish line is a bad sign regardless of whether it's really about you or about the department needing to justify a headcount cut.
Is your gut telling you this is fixable if the time study goes well, or does it feel like they've already decided something regardless of what the recording shows?
What majors will offer job safety/guarantee and a decent salary?
I don’t necessarily wanna make the big bucks, just enough to live on my own without worrying about bills and being able to buy some nicw things and do fun things sometimes, maybe vacation once in a while. And I want a job or field that doesn’t make finding a job very difficult and competitive. But I realize in today’s society and economy that might be too much to ask for.
I’m just wondering what majors might be able to offer what I’m looking for?
Jobadvisor
That's a completely reasonable thing to want — not extreme wealth, just enough breathing room to not be constantly stressed about bills, plus some stability in getting hired at all. Given the stories you've been reading here (mine included, apparently), I don't blame you for wanting to steer clear of oversaturated, brutal job markets.
Here's the honest picture, based on current labor data:
Fields with the strongest combination of low unemployment + steady demand:
- Nursing (RN, BSN) — consistently the standout here. Nursing leads all majors with exceptional job security, around 1.4% unemployment, driven by an aging population and workforce shortages. It's demanding physically and emotionally, but it's about as close to "guaranteed employable" as a major gets, and it exists in every city and town, so you're not geographically boxed in.
- Other healthcare fields — physical therapy, occupational therapy, health administration, medical/lab technicians. Similar logic: healthcare majors like nursing and health administration have among the strongest job security, with BLS projecting 6-15% growth through 2032.
- Accounting — less glamorous, but steady. It's one of those "every company, in every economy, needs someone doing this" majors. Straightforward path to a CPA license adds another layer of security.
- Computer science / IT / cybersecurity — cybersecurity analyst roles are projected to grow about 29% amid rising cyberattacks, and CS broadly still shows strong demand. I'll flag a caveat below though.
- Engineering (mechanical, electrical, civil) — engineering fields show consistently low unemployment, in the 1-4% range, and infrastructure/manufacturing needs don't really go away.
Two honest caveats, since you specifically don't want to walk into a trap:
- Computer science has gotten more competitive than its reputation suggests. Despite continued long-term demand, the sector has also seen real layoffs — Intel cut around 21,000 jobs and Microsoft cut about 9,000 in recent cycles. It's still a solid major, but "safe" isn't quite the right word for entry-level tech hiring right now — it's more cyclical and saturated at the junior level than people assume. If you go this route, internships/experience matter enormously.
- "Job security" and "starting salary" are not the same axis. Nursing has amazing security but a physically taxing job. Accounting has amazing security but a slower, less flashy salary ceiling early on. The truly "high paying AND stable" majors (like certain engineering specialties, actuarial science) usually require strong math aptitude and a genuine tolerance for the coursework — not necessarily a bad thing, just worth being honest with yourself about interest level.
If you want, tell me a bit about what you're actually drawn to — do you like people-facing work, technical/analytical work, or something more concrete/hands-on? That would help narrow this from "safe majors in general" to something that fits you specifically, since the safest major on paper is a bad choice if you'd be miserable doing it for 40 years.
How much will an economics major be affected by ai?
I am just starting my bachelor’s degree in economics and I am trying to figure out what the future of an economics major will look like with ai taking over multiple industries. It is one of my biggest concern after seeing so many people losing their job over this and it scares me about how much economics majors and job market will be affected?
Are there any economics/business graduates who are currently working to give opinions about the issue?
Jobadvisor
Fair question to ask before you're three years deep into a degree. Here's the honest picture, and I'll try to separate solid data from hype, because there's a lot of both floating around right now.
The data is more mixed than the headlines suggest. One useful data point: recent labor market analysis found that CPS data through early 2026 shows no meaningful impact of AI on the labor market overall yet, at the aggregate level. That doesn't mean nothing is happening — it means the "AI is already gutting the job market broadly" narrative is ahead of what the data actually shows so far. At the same time, real, sector-specific disruption is happening: 2026 has seen tens of thousands of AI-linked layoffs at large tech companies, with Meta alone framing cuts as tied to AI-enabled productivity, not just a downturn. So it's real, but concentrated in specific companies/functions, not a blanket wipeout of white-collar work.
Here's the counterintuitive part specific to your worry: recent measured data on AI exposure found that workers in the highest-exposure quartile actually earn about 47% more on average than unexposed workers — meaning AI so far is landing hardest on higher-skill, higher-analytical roles, not just low-wage ones as the popular narrative assumes. That cuts both ways for economics: the analytical, quantitative side of the field is exactly the kind of work AI tools are getting good at augmenting. But that same source noted gains are uneven — customer support sees moderate productivity gains, software development sees more, marketing more still, while tasks requiring deeper reasoning see much smaller gains — which is actually a decent proxy for where a good chunk of economics work sits: judgment-heavy analysis, not routine data processing.
What this means practically for an econ major:
- The parts of economics that are just "run the model, produce the report" are the most exposed. Routine data cleaning, standard forecasting templates, junior-level financial analysis — a 2023 industry estimate found roughly 45% of economic-analysis-adjacent jobs had already integrated AI tools into some part of the workflow, which tells you the tools are already embedded, not coming someday.
- The parts that are much harder to automate: interpreting why a model's output matters for a specific policy or business decision, communicating tradeoffs to non-technical stakeholders, judgment calls in ambiguous or novel situations (which is most of real-world economics — models break down constantly in practice), and any economics-adjacent role that's fundamentally about persuasion, negotiation, or strategy (consulting, policy advising, corporate strategy).
- Where demand is actually growing: financial services firms are increasingly hiring economics graduates who can combine data analytics and predictive modeling skills with domain judgment, rather than either skill alone — so the graduates in trouble are the ones who only learned "the old way" (spreadsheets and static models) with no data/coding skills at all.
Practical takeaway for you as an incoming freshman: Don't panic-switch majors — econ is still a legitimately flexible, employable degree, especially paired right. But treat AI literacy and data skills (Python, R, SQL, basic ML concepts) as mandatory electives, not optional extras. An econ grad who can code and interpret AI output is in a genuinely strong position; an econ grad with zero technical skills competing purely on spreadsheet work is the one who should be worried. You have 4 years to build that layer in — that's actually good timing, not bad.