Two Years, No Offer: A 20-Year Veteran's Job Search Diary

A job seeker with more than 20 years of experience has spent over two years searching for full-time work — while spending roughly two to two and a half hours a day applying to roles ranging from account executive to director level.

Jeremy Spiegel, who lives in Massachusetts and is in his 40s, lost his regional director of account services role at a publishing company more than two years ago. In an as-told-to essay for Business Insider, edited for length and clarity, he described what long-term unemployment actually does to finances, confidence, and family life when the search stretches far past the "couple of months" most people assume.

What does two years of unemployment look like financially?

Spiegel's household is not in immediate danger, but it is drawing down savings.

• His wife works, but her salary alone wouldn't sustain the family, so he contributes "significantly" from their savings.
• The family went from two cars to one.
• A Disney World trip his son keeps asking for keeps getting postponed.

"We're not in immediate danger of losing anything. But as with everything, that security is finite," he said.

The comparison point is 2009. When he lost his job during the Great Recession, he had less than five years of experience — and found a new job quickly. Now, with more than 20 years of experience, he is still searching.

How does he run the search?

Spiegel applies broadly. His background is in edtech and the public sector, but he now targets any company where his experience is relevant — from individual-contributor account executive and solutions engineer roles up to senior management and director positions. He applies even when overqualified, provided he meets most requirements.

He has also considered starting a business but keeps applying to jobs instead, because he believes a traditional job remains the most secure way to earn a living right now.

The results so far: several interviews, no offer, and a few near-misses. Each failed process, he notes, delivers nothing but "an even longer résumé gap for people to question."

What has it done to him personally?

Spiegel is blunt about the psychological toll. Earlier in his career, he writes, he was confident, decisive, and passionate — someone who inspired others. "Today, I feel alone. I hesitate. I worry," he said.

He now avoids socializing, fearing the question "What do you do for work?" A year into his unemployment, a family member asked whether he had offended someone at the companies he was applying to — assuming that must be the explanation. He had to explain there isn't one single reason the search is so hard for many people right now; it is, in his words, complicated and overwhelming.

The strain has reached his marriage, he says, "in ways almost nothing else ever has." He wakes at night worrying he has let his family down, and fears checking the bank accounts.

Is there anything he counts as progress?

Two things, neither of them an offer.

First, he has met other people going through — or currently in — the same situation, friendships he describes as unexpected and badly needed. Second, he has learned to give himself time off from searching, recognizing that searching every minute leads to burnout.

Through late spring and early summer, he had what he calls really good, concrete opportunities. They did not go through, and he now feels he is back to square one: résumés out, a couple of recruiter callbacks, nothing substantial.

His summary of the gap between perception and reality in this market: unless you've dealt with it yourself, everyone thinks a job search means a few rough months at worst. "That's just not what this is," he said.

Each morning, he repeats the closing line from the 2000 film Boiler Room: "I gotta find a job."