I'm fucking tired of explaining to business ghouls that I AM FUCKING DESPERATE. I'M INTERVIEWING WITH YOU BECAUSE I WANT TO SURVIVE. I DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT MY DREAMS OR WHETHER THIS JOB OR YOUR COMPANY LINES UP WITH MY CAREER GOALS. WE ARE HOLY-SHIT PAST THE POINT WHERE I'M ABLE TO BE CHOOSY. ALL YOU FUCKING NEED TO DO IS READ THE FUCKING RESUMÉ THAT'S RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR GOD-DAMNED EYES, ASK ABOUT MY QUALIFICATIONS, AND TELL ME WHETHER OR NOT I'M A GOOD FIT.
NO, your company isn't special to me, and it isn't special to ANYONE but you and your business-ghoul friends. Your company is merely the LABEL that will decorate my paycheck and LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE, AND I'M SICK OF PRETENDING OTHERWISE.
And WHY the FUCK are you calling me to literally REPEAT SHIT YOU'RE TOO FUCKING IGNORANT TO READ ON THE GOD-DAMNED FUCKING RESUMÉ?
I've applied for at least 200 engineering jobs (I recounted the ones on job sites; but even that's nowhere near all of them) this year and gotten zero offers. This job search is LITERALLY DRIVING ME INSANE, because I can no longer fucking afford antidepressants and I'm on the verge of blowing up in people's faces all the goddamn fucking time. I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE.
Try [insert nearby industry here]
Funny story: turns out, there are people who studied for degrees in those nearby industries. No I can't land a software developer, data scientist, IT, etc., job, because (1) I've applied for all those several times and not even gotten an interview and (2) my school produces students who actually studied those topics as a major!
So thank you genuinely to the dozens of people who have recommended that, I really do appreciate the help ... but that only works if you're an appealing candidate in general.
Why are you unhirable?
Bad GPA (~2.8; many firms have hard cutoff > 3 or 3.1), no experience/internships, no support/professional network, recent downward trajectory on transcript, autistic, mentally ill getting more unstable by the day, terrible attitude that's impossible to fully hide, no charisma to accommodate for my deficiencies, no access to a time machine. I KNOW how I got here, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
At least when I worked in food delivery I managed to make non-trivial money. AT LEAST I WAS HAPPY while being exploited. Now I'm thousands of dollars in debt, literally a hundred pounds heavier, psychologically and emotionally BROKEN, and no closer to getting a real job than I was before.
I am in no way qualified to address any of that. Really sorry you're going through it all, it sounds like hell. I do want to ask/suggest you could do food delivery again, for now, to pay for your gas and antidepressants in between interviews. A food delivery job should be flexible I'd think? So maybe you can work around interview times. Maybe you do a few less interviews per time week (or whatever your preferred time interval of measurement) and pull the nose of the plane up on some what's got you so stressed, while still not giving up on your goal and dream of being an engineer.
I'm not an engineer, but I can relate to this.
I've been trying to get a new job this year and have been lied to repeatedly with fake jobs that didn't even exist.
I'm fucking sick of it. I hope you come up with something legit.
So while I can't pay for gas without begging my parents for gas money, my literal gas tank is about half full, so I should be good for a couple weeks. I meant "out of gas" metaphorically. Sorry if that was deceptive.
If I can't get an internship in the field, then that would be the move. The problem with pizza delivery is that it was customer facing and additionally extremely stressful. It was getting a lot more difficult when I left, e.g. less room for mistakes... basically, we were in the midst of a corporate clampdown. Customers also got a lot worse after the pandemic. Even when it was good, food delivery was the only thing I had energy to do, even on antidepressants without the weight gain. Food delivery would probably mark the end of my engineering career as it previously marked the end of my music production career. Engineering internships pay more than food delivery anyways. Employers are already asking about the gap in my work history since I graduated in May, and my food service experience doesn't count as engineering experience or basically anything other than to verify that I wasn't just sitting on my thumbs for seven years.
It's not so much the number of interviews as it is the applications. I've had 11 interviews total spread out over about four months, but I got these interviews by filling out hundreds of applications, which is frustrating and demoralizing.
I'm so burned out, but I have to be doing something.
Another thought occured; you could try a different place not going through a corporate clampdown, if there's another delivery place where you live, or there are also app jobs you can deliver for and those are super flexible. I don't know, I'm maybe barking up the wrong tree. But you've got at least one stranger out there in the world brainstorming about helping so that's something you've got going for you, which is nice.
I do have a DoorDash account lying around. But food delivery is really dangerous. I live (and worked in) a nice area, but even our drivers got robbed; one had their car stolen. Plus, my car is getting old and I can't afford the wear-and-tear that driving it all day would bring. But thank you for your advice; it's nice to know someone cares.
That's all fair reasoning, not that you actually had to explain it to to me, some stranger. But I appreciate that you took the time to talk to me. Especially when you're dealing with everything and like I said, I'm not really qualified to help, and my one suggestion wasn't exactly useful. Still, I'm rooting for you, dude.
Something that helps me sometimes is reading a book called the Enchiridion by Epictetus. It isn't a religious book or anything but it helps. I like the translation by Elizabeth Carter. I've found listening to it occasionally helps me learn something about myself or something dumb like that. It's not dumb though, and maybe it could be interesting to you. But if not that's also really fair and I hope you find something that helps you manage the stress you're feeling.
I put the book on my reading list 😊. Thank you for your kind words.