I was laid off in November and, 7 months later, I'm still searching. As a Technical Writer/Documentation Specialist, it used to take 45–60 days to land a role. Today, it feels like winning the lottery. One job posting attracts thousands of applicants, often from around the world. I've applied to over 400 positions and received only four responses — and all were rejection emails. The job market is unlike anything I've seen before.

I had a recruiter reach out to me for a role and then completely disappear after our first conversation. It’s frustrating because they acted extremely interested at first and then stopped responding without any explanation. How long do I follow up for before letting it go?

Four rounds of interviews over two weeks with nothing but excellent post-interview feedback and got rejected out of nowhere with no actual feedback. This is the farthest I've gotten in 6 months of looking to get out of my current dead end only to be shot down just because reasons after being told everything went great. What a kick in the junk.

Has anyone here gotten hired recently after a long employment gap? I’ve been out of work longer than expected and I’m starting to worry recruiters see the gap and immediately move on. I still feel confident in my skills but explaining unemployment over and over in interviews is getting exhausting.

Do you think working remotely kills creativity? I still look for remote jobs as my first preference because it allows me to save money, time, and be in a space I am usually more creative i.e. my own house. I spoke to a CEO of a tech startup who called everyone to return to in person work becuase working remotely lacked the out-of-the-box results he was looking for. What are your thoughts?