Unemployed almost a year, actively looking since Nov'25
Hi, I just discovered this subreddit today and was going through posts of unemployment. I was surprised there's such a thing as ghost listing! Now I'm like... No wonder I barely got any callbacks.
So backstory. In 2022, I quit my job at a tuition center. I was promoted to assistant manager but it caused me so much stress that I realized management role is not for me. After that I applied for a number of jobs and only Recruitexpress got back to me with a bank job offer.
I didn't want to work in the banking industry since I had family members who worked in banks and they were burned out. But my mom and friends were like, if you don't try, you'll never know. So since I had nothing else, I accepted the job.
Last year in May, I quit my job. I gave myself 2 years to gauge if banking industry is for me. I was in the CDD/AML unit so workload is really demanding. Our unit also has high turnover.
And at the same time, my mom had some health issues and I was the primary caretaker so had a lot of back-and-forth polyclinic/hospital appointments. So I signed on for a CCP (TA) course for data analysis, figuring I should take advantage of the subsidy to upskill myself in the meantime.
I finished the course in Nov 25 and now my mom's appointments are more spaced out so I started actively applying for jobs. I know ofc my foundational knowledge in things like Excel, Python and Power BI won't get me a data analyst job from the get-go but I still tried looking for jobs that deal with these tools, hoping I'd get the opportunity to learn and grow in the job.
But after 2-3 months of almost nothing (I had 1 callback and it's clear they needed someone with actual hands-on data cleaning experience), I had to expand my job search and was applying for generic admin stuff. Then since last month, as my savings are drying up and I was desperate, I decided to apply for jobs in the industries I'd left like banking and education. But still crickets.
I know the job market is bad now, and I'm even contemplating just applying for jobs at fast food restaurants or supermarkets now bec I really need the income esp for the bills and insurance etc (forget spending or traveling etc). But finding out there's such a thing like ghost listing, I'm like... How do I know what are the legit job openings out there?
Any advice would be appreciated (by the way, I do tweak my resumes to fit the JD which I know is a hot tip)
Thank you 🙏