Biggest gap between jobs?

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It's been about ten years since I last had a job and I'm now 54 years old. I'm kind of addicted to the idea of having a career, but in such a low population rural area it's unlikely to ever happen. And yet the idea goes round and round, like an old vinyl record. I guess it's a 'special interest'.

A lot of us have experienced extended gaps between jobs. Indeed, it was exploring the reasons for my gaps with a psychologist that led to my diagnosis.

What's the longest gap you had between jobs where it was broken by you successfully getting a job? In my case it' not this ten years, because I haven't ended it with a job. I think my longest drought ending with a job would have been about five years. A long time ago in the 90s.

8 years here. It's a huge struggle, especially with applicant trackers.

Applicant trackers?

Not including undergraduate years, four and a half years, and not including unpaid internships

June 2016 through October 2020

During that time I wasted a couple hours a day, a couple of hours a week, applying for slavery

I thought nobody would ever make the mistake of hiring my worthless corpse again

Unemployable

When the current slave plantation makes my worthless corpse redundant, then I will really be completely unemployable

December 2006-January 2008.

Although it isn't like I was totally unemployed either. Still living at home with parents at the time and was refereeing soccer 2-3 times a week for a good rate. Tournaments gave a chance to make 150 dollars a day and minimum wage was $7.45/hr at the time. Games would pay between 30-55 dollars depending on age group and whether being an assistant or the head referee.

I wonder how much they pay referees now.

I started working at 16 and didn't really have a gap other than being at school, for about 30 years.

Excluding; education, short-term freelancing and probationary periods of work, I've been long-term unemployed my entire adult life.

They are software that scans for buzzwords and "perfect" resume formatting, meant to save HR people the trouble of actually reading resumes. Before ATs, it was possible to enter new fields via transferable skills. Now, an applicant has to tick every box to get their foot in the door, and have the perfect format and all the necessary buzzwords, even if they're experienced and highly educated.

Instead of allowing professionals to branch out into new fields, said professionals are pigeonholed into very narrow fields, with no opportunity to advance.

Employers want the unicorn, the 20 year old with 30 years experience.

About nine years for me, though I've had a full time job for 3.5 years now.

Last edited by arx3745 on 03 Feb 2022, 8:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

A year and a half for me.

I'm 25 and have never been employed.

37 days.  Even when I was homeless for about 17 months, I hustled every job I could find.  Some were a little "shady", but none were outright illegal.

Since the age of 18----a couple of weeks. I've been very fortunate. I've had a steady job since about July of 1980.