I went through a long gap after a bad layoff from a company I was with for 19 years. New management came in and purged anyone with over 10years with the company (not execs of course). Apparently we were dead weight and they needed a fresh outlook.
After jumping straight into job hunt mode before it was so rosy I found things had changed dramatically with getting a job.
Job sites were useless, computer screening had broken that system with uncontrolled illegal filtering requiring you to be a god to get hired.
The amount of harassment phone interviews was insane. 99.9% of the phone interviews I did were dead ends. I actually had a interview with a computer AI once, strangely one of the more interesting ones. Most were just calling to meet their quota.
gotta beat the filters
I found out that experience and age were huge red flags. So I made some changes: don't show jobs less than 3 years ago, don't talk about old training, hide your age as best as possible, look as young as possible with your interests (skydiving, rollerblading, extreme waffle making, no woodworking, no fishing).
gotta beat the filters
Being a veteran is now bad, companies apparently can't fire you easily. So a bonus is now a curse. Out went another chunk of my experience and training.
gotta beat the filters
jobtrainers were a joke, training you for the interview that you could never get too. They never gave any solutions for getting to that point, and were suspiciously interested in any info from your old job.
gotta beat the filters
jobfairs were junk too, they just collected all the resume and sent them right through the same computer systems that were screwing you over online
gotta beat the filters
Finally I broke my resume down even more. I threw out all the things I learned, things I did, things I was certified in and just said straight up “I've walked into every job with absolutely no idea how do it, no one to train me and no documentation to reference and within 6 months I'll be an expert in it.”
happily the filters haven't figured out that one yet
Apparently quite a few companies buy things that they have no idea how to work. So now I've been doing way better in 3 years than I have the last 19.
So in conclusion lie about your age, lie about your experience, never say your a vet and say you have no idea how to do the job but you will learn it no matter what.
not one “job training” idiot told me that