The Burnout Collective
We're tired af. We're sick of this sh*t. And we're guessing you are too. Welcome to The Burnout Collective podcast—a place for broken, burnt out brains to talk it out. Join us and our guests as we Do Our Best(tm) to break the burnout cycle.
New episodes every other Tuesday anywhere you get your podcast fix!
The Burnout Collective
Jumping on grenades for everyone
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This week we celebrated our 20th podcast episode! Proof even the most ADHD brains can, in fact, stick with things.
Earlier in the week, Jamie had a meltdown over the seemingly impossible job market. So, we wanted to discuss the struggles of finding a job (especially after being laid off). We talk about frustrations with current hiring practices, LinkedIn scammers, and the emotional toll of constant rejection.
To lighten the mood, we also share some job-hunting tips, emphasize the significance of negotiating salaries, and remind everyone that we DFWFF (f you know, you know).
Also, listen to both of us try to pronounce commensurate incorrectly multiple times without ever getting it right.
Mentioned in this episode
Have a suggestion for our next episode? A burnout story to share? Send us a text!
The Burnout Collective Podcast is hosted by Jamie Young and Rebecca McCracken.
New episodes every other Tuesday anywhere you get your podcasts!
Join our Discord community: discord.gg/ZwBjbmVfAF
Follow us on our socials: linktr.ee/burnoutcollective
Music track: Snap Your Fingers by Aylex
Source: https://freetouse.com/music
You haven't reached eating Doritos in your underwear
JamieI had, I literally had a mini bag of Doritos for breakfast the other day at like noon. And then I didn't eat
RebeccaI stand, I stand so corrected. I would like to, um, take back my statement.
Jamiebut we'll talk about that later.
RebeccaWithdrawn. Nevermind.
JamieSubscribe, to OnlyFans, please.
I am Jamie. And I'm Rebecca. Welcome to the Burnout Collective.
JamieHello.
RebeccaHi, welcome to episode 20. We did it.
JamieI know
RebeccaThis is monumental. Thank you guys for joining us.
JamieHappy
Rebeccaproud of us.
JamieThursday. Happy Podcast Day, as we like to say around here. Oh, yep. Rebecca was just saying like, oh my God, episode 20. Did you ever think we'd make it here? Much less episode five? And I was like, no.
RebeccaNope,
JamieYes. It's almost the weekend, almost. We're here to taunt you that it's not quite the weekend, but in case you weren't here last week, we announced, our interview. I should make it like a bot command actually, so I can just, whatever. But here's our listen notes interview, that we did, were a very beloved sought after podcast and they were like, God, we would love to interview you. And we were like, I guess we have the time. but no, seriously, you don't always hear, you don't always hear from us why we do this and why we started this, and like the main reason. I think we kinda go into it well there. So give it a read, give it a skim. we worked hard on it and Yeah. You wanna let the people know what they should join?
RebeccaJoin the discard.
JamieJoin the
Rebeccawe are there to help. Look at your resumes. We are there to commiserate. We are there to share jobs that are available if we know of any, professionally network, personally network. If you need a body, double, if you need an alibi. all of these and more on our discard
JamieOn the discard. and next week, for episode 21. Do you wanna
RebeccaIf all goes well, we'll be joined by Morgan Smith. Leonard, who was, my colleague, a few years ago. She's super fucking smart. She was in recruiting in hr. She's very much a people person. Very much an extrovert and so much fun to talk to.
JamieWe love smart bitches.
RebeccaShe really is. Really is.
JamieYeah. And we're looking to get, more guests, scheduled soon. We have a couple on the horizon yet, but also if you wanna be a guest or if either of us has asked you about being a guest at some point, or if we haven't and you're interested, please reach out to us, let us know. we want a variety, or if, you know, if you're like, oh my God, I follow this person on social media, and they're always talking about mental health or burnout or whatever, make suggestions, like who you might
RebeccaMm-hmm.
Jamiehear, like what would be interesting for you anyway. Yeah,
RebeccaYeah,
JamieSo, today was supposed to be an episode on spring cleaning, or Swedish death cleaning. And I had a minty bee yesterday. I think that's the first time I've ever said minty bee. I've been watching too much TikTok, and cried to Rebecca for 20 minutes on video, on a video call. Because of just the state of the job market and job searching. And it's been like this for a while, obviously. but it's been rough. And I also know a lot of people who also got laid off that are still looking for work and everyone's having a really fucking tough time. And so I was like, we need to talk about this tomorrow in my like crying rage. And Rebecca was like, oh, maybe we should just play a game or something. We don't have to do the show tomorrow. if you're, and I was like, no, we're doing this.'cause I wanna talk about it. Yeah, so we just wanted to talk about it more.'cause we know a lot of people that are going through this. What's happening? so let's get into it.
Rebeccaall of our outline is just all caps and me transposing. What you were saying yesterday,
Jamieknow, I realized that'cause I didn't read the outline'cause I was just like crying and raging and Rebecca's like, okay, I'm making the outline. You know? And like I didn't look at it until today. Like I. Probably like 30 or 40 minutes ago. And I pull, I pull it up and it literally is all caps, it ends with a bullet that is in all caps that just says, I fucking hate everything. And that's what I said.
Rebeccaverbatim basic what.
Jamiedirect quote. Direct quote. yeah. imposter syndrome is real. it's real period, even when you have a job, right? But it gets bad when you're searching for a job. And not only are you, listen, I've been doing what I've been, when I've been doing for closing in on 15 years, 14, 15 years. I've been in the space for a long time. I'm an expert. I've been doing, editing and writing in the personal finance space for that long and managing and leading. And it just is insane when you've been doing some, it's insane, period, but it's insane when you've been doing something for so long. And I think I definitely took it for granted that I was like,'cause I've been laid off before, but I got laid off when I got laid off the first time. That was, obviously of course horrible and out of the blue, but like I got scooped up so fast.
RebeccaMm-hmm.
Jamielayoff because of everything, please go back and listen to our episode about layoffs in which I announced that I was laid off that week, which was great. I, at first was very welcoming of the layoff because of all the stress and moral injury that was going on and, you know, burnout. and so I did take a couple months there, there were a couple, not full months, but like a couple months here and there where like I didn't do a lot, I didn't look a lot for jobs because I needed that break to repair my mental health.
RebeccaI, while you were talking just a thought with your imposter syndrome that I wanted to go back to, just, I wanted to see, and so I just did a quick Google search and in March of, you know, last month, the economy only had 228,000 new jobs. They only added 2200 28,000 new jobs, and the current unemployment rate is 7.1 million. So, despite my career in personal finance, I can't do the math on those odds, but I do think those are pretty bad odds. So
JamieCan we get a numbers guy in here? Can we get a numbers guy in here to do that math?
RebeccaI'm just saying it's imposter syndrome, but like when you look at the actual math, you are, you're, you're playing the lottery essentially,
JamieYou are
Rebeccaright? it's a, it's, you're playing the lottery at this point. so I.
Jamieand a lot of people in our industry too, like, I mean, not like this show is not all about me being laid off obviously, but like a lot of people in our industry were laid off like all at the same time and like in succession as well. So that makes it more difficult because everybody's looking for the same type of job and applying to the same places. And I know everyone that got laid off with me on my team and the other team that was laid off at the same time, like they're all great. They're all super talented. They're They've all been doing this for a while, just like me, So it's like everybody's qualified.
RebeccaIt is, you have like a, if I, we need this, right? Like a out of 1,775 people. that's the pool of people you're up against essentially for those odds. Roughly. that's a shit ton of people.
JamieYeah.
RebeccaAnd if you're in a niche industry like ours, and it's so small,
JamieIt doesn't feel small though, like, I mean, I guess it is, but
RebeccaI mean it's really, it's a specialized one. So it's, it's not general like editing. So there's more competition I think. But the fact you're up against that many people,
Jamiein that. Yeah.
Rebeccathat's
Jamieyeah, it's insane, crazy. It's, it feels bad man, and I know everybody else that's looking for a job feels the same. And there, and then there are people that are laid off looking for jobs still. And then there are also people that are at the companies that had the layoffs, that are looking, that are looking for jobs, even though they're still there because they know like, okay, my time's probably coming soon. And
RebeccaAnd it goes on for date, like you were saying, it's been what, four months?
JamieYeah, it's about four months now, I think. Going on five actually.
RebeccaYeah. And the longest I've been unemployed was nine months, and it felt like years. It felt like years and years. So I mean it's four months, objectively. But on an unemployed timescale,
JamieYeah.
Rebeccait's insane.
JamieI've been unemployed between roles and yet definitely was one of the most lower times in my life. Yeah, it's bad. It's bad. I just lost my train of thought now'cause I got distracted.
RebeccaYou have purpose when you're working and then when you're, suddenly you have nothing to do because despite capitalism, your job is you have a purpose. You go, you do your task, and like that's what you need to get up for every morning when you don't have a job. What is the fucking point?
JamieIt's like
RebeccaWhat are you supposed to do?
JamieExcept Wallow.
RebeccaYeah. And ideally it's like, I use this time to garden and better myself. And it's like, no, I
JamieOh my God. It's like covid. It's like Covid. When everyone was like, I learned this new skill.
RebeccaIt's like your mini covid. You're basically in quarantine on your own.'cause you can't really spend money. You can't go out because money's tight and you have to think about everything constantly. Oh god.
JamieBut also I did learn new skills.'cause like we started a podcast, I don't know if you know this, it's called the Burnout Collective. Everyone making sourdough again. Yeah. yeah, I didn't learn anything new. Like, I thought that I would completely repair like my mental health and like my, I did. I was like, I was like, this is great. I'll take a break. I'm gonna fix everything because I'm not gonna have to deal with
RebeccaI know,
Jamiea toxic job for a month and a half, two months. And that didn't
Rebeccabut also having to repair your mental health in gestures. Vaguely. All of this fucking impossible.
Jamieyeah. And then it got worse too.'cause I was laid off, let's see, I was told that I was being laid off in October, but we,
RebeccaUgh.
Jamiethey kept us on for October and then they also kept us on the payroll for November. Technically. Um, we, we did nothing. Like we, everyone was just looking for jobs at that time. And so it was also like, laid off during the holidays. Nobody's
Rebeccawhat I would've done during that time? I would've gone through my slack and just to see who's actually reading and can HR see what I'm putting in here? Just for fun to see like what would happen,
JamieI mean, yeah, I didn't do that. I didn't do that. I felt like they're not, they weren't, because I know some people that were kind of doing that and nothing happened. but yeah.
RebeccaBut I mean, even though you were on the payroll, like if you still aren't working, I mean, it's like you're getting a preview of it and
JamieYeah. And so I went hard then when like everyone, we all got laid off. We were all like trying to help each other and we're still trying to help each other. We still share jobs and everything. but, and then for December, I just had some I, like, I, I just had, I had some plans and so didn't really look, didn't really look in December and nothing was going on. that's when it was the absolute worst was
RebeccaNo one's
JamieJanuary, even in February. I think it started to pick up a little bit in February, but barely, and it has started to pick up. I have noticed that. So I guess there's that. However, like when you see, and I'm sure I've mentioned this before, so sorry if I'm a broken record, but when you're like, oh, hey, this sounds good. I'm gonna apply for this job, and then you see that it was posted eight hours ago and then it's already saying no longer accepting applications. It's are you fucking kidding me? You posted this at six in the morning and now this afternoon you're like, oh no, done. We got too many. It. What, how are you gonna trust that you've got the right person for this job by only leaving it up for that long? that's insane to me, as a hiring manager, as somebody who's been a hiring manager often, like, that's not, that's not gonna do it.
RebeccaNo. And again, that speaks to that pool of 7.1 million if jobs are filled up at capacity, as far as how many applicants they can take in that many hours.
JamieYeah, I think the problem is in that amount of time, they're getting like a thousand. Oh yeah. No, I know. I absolutely know why they do it, but I don't know. I've worked at companies and no companies that like, they don't do that. They're not like, oh no, we get this record number of applications we gotta stop.
RebeccaAlso, what if your dream employee is on vacation at the moment and doesn't see it when it goes up? Like
Jamiewell it's literally like, unless you're there looking at it. I think we talked about this with Alyssa and she said unless you're there looking at it, the moment it goes up, basically like the day it goes up. So it's like finding a job's already a full-time fucking job, except you don't get anything out of it and you're not getting paid for it.
RebeccaAs a hiring manager, how many of those applicants are someone from like, I don't know, KFC, and is like, I'm looking to be an editorial manager.'cause we've had those before. I had one guy who worked as like at an extermination company, apply for a job recently. Like how many of those slots are then being filled up and you totally lose out on the chance and because they've shut it down, but then they have to sift through all that bullshit. So like it
JamieWell, and then,
Rebeccaclose it?
Jamieyeah, are they gonna open it again? if they're smart, I think they would open it back up. But if they were truly smart, I don't think they should have closed it
RebeccaNo.
Jamiebut then on the other hand, there are tons of companies that are leaving them open forever after they've gotten, after they've filled the role. It's just like
Rebeccabe someone better.
Jamiewe have all these articles out there, like seven interview tips, you know? And like how to land your next, like your next new favorite job and like stuff like that. But it's like where the fucking articles that are like, Hey, you stupid ass hiring managers. And it's not all hiring managers. I can't blame it all on them. Hey, recruiters, and sometimes if it's a smaller company and you have one of those, it's like, Hey, yeah, idiot s s not S-E-O-C-E-O. Like this isn't working, this is what you should do. These things you're doing are red flags. Don't do those things. Don't, don't.
Rebeccawould you prefer like a more rigorous process? So like if, if they left it up longer and like maybe to weed out the people, like would you prefer to give more information on the go around, like the first go around then? if you had to put in a little bit more extra work? Because a lot of times they're asking, they're, they're using software like AI to sort through and so they could probably better narrow it down and have a closer match if like you did a little bit more work up front.
JamieYeah, I mean,
RebeccaBut that's still time.
Jamiethat's fine and I'm willing to do that. I've done that. I've done, we've all done that. We've done ridiculous shit
RebeccaYeah.
Jamieone of, one of my new favorite things and a red flag to me that I was telling Rebecca about is like, um, I see this all over for different gigs and I do kind of understand if it's like a social media gig for like a big company, like if it's like Microsoft or something like, and they're hiring like a social media director or like a director role. I can understand this, but for anything else, I can't. I was looking at like freelance writing jobs where they were asking me to also submit a two minute video introducing myself, and I'm like, I'm not working for you full time. I'm not doing anything where I'm gonna be on video.
RebeccaMm-hmm.
JamieLike, the biggest thing that you and I talked about is that introduces bias. First of all, I know I'm a white woman, but like for other, for people of color, like that introduces such a fucking bias. And it can also introduce bias for people who don't know how to record videos or what to use and aren't using the right lighting or the right software. And it's this isn't a video job or
RebeccaThere was an actor during Covid who was auditioning online, I forget his name, but like he was doing it in his house and they thought they had muted and they were basically like, look at his shithole house, and he could hear them. So that's for an acting job. So you know for sure someone's gonna be like, look at her shithole house, or look at like, they have nothing on the walls. And judge you based on that, when you could be the best fucking person to work there.
JamieYeah. And it's and sometimes we don't even know it. So like, these can be people that like, maybe they are nice people, but in their heads, they're like, oh, I just didn't like her. but really they were thinking about, my like messy ass, ridiculous background. Um, it's, fucked up.
RebeccaIt's immediate bias, like guaranteed it's immediate bias. Let us look at you and automatically judge a book by its fucking cover right now that it is. That's what it is. We're judging you by your cover.
JamieWhich like they get to do when I get on a video interview with them anyway. But I also wonder like all the extra information, like that video or anything or like when they're like,
RebeccaOh, they're stealing your ideas,
Jamieyeah, write an example, blah, blah, blah for us and we're not gonna pay
Rebeccaright? As an entire marketing plan, and also like a social media campaign for 2025 and 2026. Thanks.
Jamiecreated whole, yeah. I've created a whole like content calendar slash marketing plan for people before and didn't get paid for it. And what is our rule, Rebecca?
RebeccaWe don't fucking work for
JamieWe don't fucking work for free. And everyone remember that? Don't work for free.
RebeccaYou can ask me. Paid for the work you do when you're applying for jobs, though, like that is absolutely reasonable and not in an Amazon gift card either.
JamieD-F-W-F-F don't work for fucking free.'Cause that has fucked me on promotions at different jobs that we've talked about on this show. oh, you want me to do this new role with double the responsibility. Cool. What's the paying increase? All you care about is money. Like why is it all money to you? You should just be happy to do what? No, it doesn't work like that. And it definitely doesn't work like that when I'm looking for a job because I have no money.
RebeccaYeah. Also, if you want me to try out a job, then like transition me for like from my current job, take over my duties and then gimme the space where like I can show you what I can do.
Jamieyeah.
RebeccaDon't make me do two jobs. it's,
JamieYeah.
RebeccaNot getting the best outta people.
JamieYeah, Pat says Interviews are why I am hesitant about dyeing my hair or painting my nails. Yeah. maybe I should be hesitant about that, but honestly, no one even emails me back. I haven't even been getting any interviews. I haven't had an interview in a month and a half. And out of the, I don't know, I wanna say thousands at this point, but maybe I'm over doing it at least hundreds of applications that I have turned in, like three, maybe four interviews. I think it was three since November. And that's unlike. Everyone else doesn't reply. Might all cancel on me. Yeah, there's that. I've had that, but mostly I just don't get a reply. I don't get a, sorry. We filled a role. I do. I have gotten some, which I appreciate. I'm like, thank you. thank you for being a good game. I like, I always email them back and thank them because
RebeccaThank you for not being an asshole and being a decent human fucking being.
Jamieyeah, it's so difficult and I feel like everybody, like I go on LinkedIn and everybody's talking about this. Everybody's like, I've been laid off just like all of my colleagues and blah, blah, blah. And this is happening. I'm trying to think of like the other red flags. Obviously, we're like a family here.
RebeccaOh, we're not putting any information about anything that's going on with us. We're not disabled. We are straight as an arrow. We are not your business skin color like we are. I'm not disclosing shit about shit. It's all, no, I'm not, because that, you know, with all the DEI anti DEI bullshit that's happening under this fucking asshole
JamieMm-hmm.
Rebeccaguarantee you people would like start looking for that and be like, no. Anything with a yes on that. They'd be like, absolutely not. It's just, and it gives them permission to, and you know that they're gonna be doing that. And I wanna say I'm, I wish I couldn't be as cynical as I am, but you know, that's what's happening.
JamieYeah. And it's just so hard. And like even, because like, you know, when you went through this, when you were laid off for so long, like I was there for that while you were laid off and just like seeing many other people close to me, like Pat, you know, like go through layoffs and deal with it. Like Alyssa, like
RebeccaYeah. You haven't reached eating Doritos in your underwear
JamieI had, I literally had a mini bag of Doritos for breakfast the other day at like noon. And then I didn't eat
RebeccaI stand, I stand so corrected. I would like to, um, take back my statement.
Jamiebut we'll talk about that later.
RebeccaWithdrawn. Nevermind.
JamieSubscribe, to OnlyFans, please. I don't care if they're being dicks about that. I don't wanna work there anyway. See, and that's how I feel and that's how I usually feel. But then at the same time I'm like, I need a job.
Rebeccato pay rent.
JamieI'm like, I need a job. and I think I've been putting my interest in DEI and SGM initiatives on there still and telling them about disability.
RebeccaYes, pat. That is the right way to think. I am just being cynical and facetious at that point, but yes, absolutely. You shouldn't be hiding. You shouldn't be doing any of this. You should be who you are. I'm proud of it. And not treat it like it's a deficit. And I wish things were like that. I really do.
Jamieyeah, it's just unfortunate with how everything's panning out and that just makes, that just makes everything a lot worse too.'cause like I just, I don't know, go to my website, like read my resume, go to my website. Like I spent a lot of time and effort and thought in really going over like what I'm looking for in a job. What, and the cover letters I send too, I'm stopping on like the cover letter part of it a little bit. if they don't ask for it.
RebeccaOh
Jamiebut yeah, it's
Rebecca'cause we don't read them. No one reads them, you know that. No one reads them.
Jamieand that's what I think with the videos too. I'm like, what are they doing? Are they like sitting in a conference room, like laughing at everyone's stupid videos? Because these aren't people that are doing videos. These are fucking freelance writers.
RebeccaYep. It's like the fucking coliseum at this point. Like we're just, you're pitted against each other and they're just sitting back and watching and laughing.
Jamiewhat was it, who was I talking to that they said. Oh, I won't name names because I don't know, but an old colleague of mine, was applying for a job and they basically were like, they told them, Hey, it's actually a hard decision right now between you and this other candidate. Can you come in again, like in person and have a little chat with us as well? And then they had to do all these little extra things pitted against this person. And they literally like said that, I've never had that before, where they were like, we're really trying to decide between you and this other person. What can you tell us or show us that like you, they ended up getting the job and they do like it and I'm thankful, but that's so fucked up. That's so fucked up to
RebeccaThat feels like that's illegal,
JamieYeah.
Rebeccaand I know I'm gonna be disappointed and be like, yeah, technically companies can do that, but that feels like something that should be illegal.
JamieJamie, you have the
Rebeccayour opponent for this
JamieYeah. Marina says that I have the benefit of having a gender neutral name. They have no gender bias until they talk to you or Google you. Yeah, but like until the interview, you know?
RebeccaNo. Oh God dammit. It was a woman.
JamieYeah.
RebeccaFuck. It's a girl, Jamie. We wanted the boy one.
JamieAnd not even, it doesn't even have to be a video interview. if I do the HR slash recruiter screen on the phone, I think I sound like a woman. Maybe sometimes I don't.
RebeccaYou know someone out there hiring manager calls it Girl Jamie, and boy Jamie when they're like, which one do you think this one is? Girl, Jamie or boy Jamie. Fucking assholes.
JamiePat said I've had a good run. I'll live under the bridge if it means I'm done letting the angry, bigoted people keep stomping on shit. Yeah. and that's what's hard too, is like I respect the shit out of that. And I feel the same way where I'm like, we talk about this podcast even we won't put it on our LinkedIn and we tell people not to share anything about this on LinkedIn because what we
RebeccaAnd you're like, our followers. I know, but it's like our followers are really low and we're like, don't share this. Anyway.
JamieYeah, no, just on LinkedIn.
RebeccaI know.
Jamieand it's but the fucked up thing is, is like both of us have learned so many new skills and gained so many skills from doing this. And I think that makes me more marketable, for example. But I'm still kind of afraid that somebody is going to listen to an episode and I'm sure some people do that I apply for, but is gonna listen to episode and like not get the context or just listen to a clip of it or. Maybe listen to our episode about Zuckubus and just be like, what? and so I wanna say, you know what, but fuck'em. Because if they're gonna listen to this show and see, and really see what we're about and like why we're talking about this stuff, I would love to hire a person like that. To me, that's very like, commendable.
RebeccaListen, I do Google Us, like at, I'm doing it right now. I'm googling us like once a month to see if our, if it's been crawled by Google yet, like our, podcast Buzz Sprout page to see if it comes up. I am on page three, and so far we're golden. So
JamieAm I on
Rebeccathat's the good news.
Jamieam I on? What page am I on? Google Food? Rebecca?
RebeccaSee, there are two, usually you don't come up at all Do you know what I mean? Like it's, there's a lot of Jamie Young's out there, like a ton of them, so it's like there's a bunch of lamps. Yeah. So they're like, I can't even get to you. Usually it's just random. Jamie's so good name.
JamieGood name. Good name. But no, it's like I, I actually would love to put this on my resume. I would love to put this on LinkedIn, but I still don't, and I'm still hesitant because I know some people will be like, oh, we're not hiring her now. And I'm like, I don't wanna work for those people.'cause those people are, I. Judgy and they don't get it. And they're gonna be the type of people who work me into the ground and have a toxic environment and don't have a, have good leaders. And I don't wanna work for those people. But at the same time, I'm like, but I need a job and I need money. So let's still hide, not completely hide, but I do kind of like hide that from the work world. Like I don't apply to a place unless it's a place that my skills from the podcasts like would
RebeccaMm-hmm.
Jamielike go toward. and I feel comfortable. I don't share that usually. I don't share that we do this even though this is something that I'm like, this is probably, this is like one of the things in my life that I'm like the most proud of. And I love it. And it fills me up and it makes me feel good. And I love sharing this with everybody, even when we're just commiserating. Like
RebeccaMm-hmm.
Jamieit's a, it's a lot.
RebeccaIt's like having that kid in Victorian times that you couldn't really talk about. Maybe it was like your cousin fucked you or something and you had a kid, so you had hide him in a wall, but you loved him deeply. You just couldn't acknowledge him
Jamieyes, Rebecca, it is exactly like that.
RebeccaExactly like that.
JamieJesus
RebeccaI'm so proud of my metaphors.
JamiePaper says, when I talk, I don't have an accent and I have a pretty white first name. I can tell some people's tone change when I say my last name, which gives away my background. Yeah.
RebeccaYep.
Jamieoh, and Pat, I can, I can't read this.'cause I remember talking about this with Pat. Pat sent this job description, and at the top it said, read this first. Stop reading. If you are a selfish, lazy, sloppy, rude content, dishonest or negative, you won't make it past the first interview. So that's the first part. This is a job description. We are unashamedly looking for. I dotting t crossing, taking care of business bosses who dive on a grenade for their buddy. Pick up the ball, go get the w holding the rally flag in the other hand and leading the team. You've had a job, you've had a grind. Come find a refining battle. Like this doesn't, this doesn't even make sense as like
RebeccaWould you allow me to be the translator please? On this one? Could I translate what this means?
JamieOh yeah.
RebeccaHi, we are looking for a child who we can pay$12 an hour. Who will stay here until 3:00 AM Do all the fucking work. Take the blame when we get drunk during the weekend and forget to do our work and then make you do it. And then we're like, oh, no. What happened? someone we can kick around insult, make you feel as, as possible, all while a shit smile on your face because you need this job and we fucking know it. get down on your knees. Fucking slave. Let's go.
JamieYeah, we're a family.
RebeccaOh, but like, we're a family here and we have a keg,
Jamiethis is like the, it's come find a refining battleground where you defeat the worst versions of yourself to become better.
RebeccaAKA, we will peel the skin from your body if you fuck up. One more thing,
JamieDoes this fucking douche Brett douche Bag tech bro, know that like he is the worst version of myself.
RebeccaJamie, you couldn't even reach that level of.
JamieThis is like, I mean, it sounds like a kid wrote it like this sounds like a child wrote it.
RebeccaIt sounds like one of those Gwyneth Paltrow girl boss gaslight gatekeeper goop bullshit
JamieThis, this sounds like every white male, uh, uh, tech bro, CEO at a startup.
RebeccaI worked so hard. I had asked my dad for money.
JamieWe have snacks and drinks in the kitchen. Did you see that real I sent you today on Instagram?
Rebeccayes. Also, the, these are the men who say that their grandparent grandpa was in World War ii. But then don't say what side? Those guys.
Jamieit's those guys. It's those guys.
RebeccaOh, my grandfather was in the Army. Which one? Um,
JamieThank you for sharing that, pat. That was, it was Chef's Kiss. That was, it's great. Yeah. Pat shared that with me and I was like, is this real? Like this doesn't even, this doesn't even seem real.
Rebeccaif you are hit by a bus, your, that job post will be up before you're cold. Like they do not give a fuck.
JamieIt's like you're supposed to give your everything as if you already have a job at these places to get a job with these places, but they don't give a shit. You're literally just a drop in the what? 7 million jobless
Rebecca7.1 million. You're going to, you're gonna feel like the cum rag We think you are,
JamieWhat are you
Rebeccayou're just disposable to them. These jobs are just insane. And also you're not gonna get paid shit. The dive on the grenade part is concerning.'cause that sounds like, take the fucking blame,
Jamieit does. It's yeah, I would dive on a grenade for my buddy, but you're not my buddy. Like you're my CEO, you're my manager. Like,
RebeccaMm-hmm. God,
Jamieyeah.
Rebeccaon a fucking grenade. Stop at nothing.
JamieIt sounds like a child wrote it. this is whatever. I have a lot of feelings on this that I don't need to completely elaborate on over and over. but yeah, it's ridiculous. And and then the fact that most of us just don't hear anything back is, or get canceled on or get ghosted. Get ghosted. Like, I've had recruiters reach out to me wanting to recruit me and
Rebeccascammed. you've
Jamiesend Oh yeah. And there's scams. I forgot about the scams. There's also scams all over the place. what was that? Was that girl's email?
RebeccaOh, so I got to watch this real time. Jamie got a, Jamie got like this real spammy thing on LinkedIn and I was just watching her respond and trying to get information outta this woman. And this woman was like, send it. And James was like, no, you send me. And she would just try to get like your email and then you'd try to get hers and she, it was insane.
JamieYeah. no, she didn't even want my email. She just wanted to chat with me on LinkedIn and have me like, give her all this information about myself
RebeccaIt's just, what the fuck? And you just spent 15 minutes of your time. I know you're playing around, but just like for the people who are getting scammed, that's time that you could be
JamieYeah. And like some people that don't know that they're like, they don't like, I'm not calling them stupid, but some people are maybe new to LinkedIn.
Rebeccano. I didn't. I didn't mean, I mean like sham, like fuck the scammers'cause that's Okay. Good. I was not
Jamieno, I was saying like, I'm not, I'm just saying some people don't know. and some people just would be like, oh, okay, yes, here's my resume. And like, yes, of course there's nothing wrong with giving people your resume per se, but there's also a lot of people trying to tweak their AI recruiters or
RebeccaUgh.
Jamiethat they're trying to make money off of with personal information and information about people. So just don't trust that, just be safe out there because it's insane how people are trying to scam people that are already having such a hard, horrible time and just need a job. It's really fucking unfortunate if you're a hiring manager. Oh. Oh my God. Hi Torah.
RebeccaOh Torah. Thank you.
Jamiefor the sub. They've subscribed for five months. Oh, thank you Torah. You're the best. I love you. We love you. Hope you're doing
RebeccaI have in all caps here, who do they even think they are? That was one of the shrieks. You Shrieked applies
Jamieis that why you called it shriek something? Because I was just shrieking. Yeah. It's accurate. Yeah.
Rebeccado they even think they are?
JamieWho do they even think they are? But it's just please hiring managers. Please. Like common courtesy. think back to when like you were looking for a job. Think just like be human. I don't know. Just be human.
RebeccaFaan Didn't their daddy got them that job? They didn't
JamieNo, not everybody. I was a hiring manager and you're a hiring manager or daddies didn't get us jobs.
RebeccaThat's true. That's a good point. Um.
JamieLike I'm not saying that all of, I'm not saying all these people are bad people. I'm just saying that there are bad people and I think when you like have a job and you're a hiring manager and you're sifting through thousands of applications, like sometimes your brain is just Ugh, this is just a thing I have to do. This is another meeting I have on my calendar. And I get that. I've been there like it does, it's a lot, but make sure that these people get responses. Don't send a, sorry. We filled the position months after you've filled it. Even like, just,
RebeccaOh yeah.
Jamieus back.
Rebeccait was you, was it after you got laid off and then you got a response to a job like you had applied for while you were employed? do you remember that? It was just like, it had been months and then it was like, oh yeah, sorry. And you're like, oh, I applied to this. it's like it was so long ago, you totally forgot what it was.
Jamieyeah. Yeah, it's beyond rude.
RebeccaOh, and then you get follow up emails being like, Hey, how is the hiring process? And can you give us five star
JamieI was excited. Remember? I was like, oh, let me tell you about the
RebeccaI dunno.
JamieBut then I went in and it was just like,
RebeccaIt did. It was like one through five.
Jamieyeah. And then I didn't have an a chance to like, say anything. I was like, okay, this sucks. Come
RebeccaOh, we didn't, we don't like actually care.
Jamiehave a, yeah, have a have a better form because I wanna read you for filth. Come here. Come here.
Rebeccamm-hmm. Come here. Just come here close. Yeah. that one was probably the worst I've ever seen.
Jamieyeah.
RebeccaOh, wait. When you do apply for the job, I got to witness this in real time yesterday. You pulled from you uploaded your resume and it's supposed to pull in and pre-fill the form for you with like, it introduced errors
Jamiethat,
Rebeccayour,
Jamieyeah.
Rebeccaif you hadn't caught that, if you hadn't been like, that looks weird,
JamieIf I wasn't an editor I probably wouldn't have caught that.
Rebeccayou'll look like an idiot. And you would've been out of that chance for the job just based on that. there was letters where they shouldn't be, words were broken up.
Jamieto be fair, I mean I know those are still around, but I have not seen that. Usually people are just like, here, upload your resume here. Or you can put it in plain text. That's it. That's perfect.'cause I can give you what I've created in PDF form or I can just type it in. I guess that's more the type in is more like the cover letter or whatever. but this company, which is a huge company by the way, giant Ask Company, they do it where you upload your resume and then like Rebecca said, it pulls it into a form and not only did it introduce errors with the formatting and it fucked it all up, made it look weird, which as an editor, I'm like, I have to fix this now. it introduced, which I can't, I still can't figure out how, but it introduced typos.
RebeccaYeah.
JamieThere were typos that it had introduced. Into my resume that it pulled on this form. And so I had to go in and I had to change everything and fix everything.
RebeccaAfter you had a panic attack and you're like, oh my God, is my resume wrong?
JamieI know. I was like, you were, I was like, I can't have that typo. And then I saw a second typo and I was like, do I have these typos in my resume? And Rebecca's like, there's no way. Right? And I was like, I would assume there's no way. But what is this?
RebeccaI knew you could never do that bad, Jamie. I knew that it was just,
Jamietalking about? No, it's not the LinkedIn one. This was just
Rebeccabut that one fucks your, that
Jamieyeah, that one fucks you up too. Yeah, I don't do that. I'd never apply using LinkedIn. but I might start, because I put in all this effort in like curating like a cover letter and like telling you things about me and my skills that would make me awesome for this job and this role. and I spend a lot of time on that and it's like, why nobody responds to me. It makes me feel like shit. It makes me feel like I'm not good enough. It makes me feel like maybe I'm not good at what I do, or like maybe I'm not writing these awesome cover letters that I think I'm on. Maybe my resume isn't as great as I thought it was after spending many days and time on it.
RebeccaThat's what I wanted to bring up, watching you panic yesterday about your resume, and it was like the thought that you had actually messed it up when before. I know you've been like, I would never fucking do that, but you had to double check yourself.
JamieYeah.
RebeccaYou never, I mean, like you, that's usually
JamieBe like, no, of course not. Like I'm not gonna put typo in my resume. Like, I
RebeccaRight. You can tell it's taken You've taken it so hard, like
Jamielike Yeah.
Rebeccait's happened so many times and you've taken it so much that you can tell that now you're just like double checking. You know what I mean though? Like, it, it's like it's hap this has happened to you so much. You're just like, oh my God, is it me when you can just tell it's gone too.
JamieYeah. But it's really tough. I wanna get back to, I know we do it a little bit, but I wanna start posting more job opportunities and stuff in Discord. and everyone else please do so too. Even if you're like, oh, I don't know. And I'm not sure Feel free to post it. Like it doesn't hurt to post it. If you come across something, or even if you're like, we're all over the place, oh, my company's remote and this came up. please post it. All right. We got a quick ad break.
RebeccaIs it McDonald's? I see French fries.
Jamieoh my God, Rebecca,
RebeccaIt is McDonald's. We got McDonald's.
Jamielove that. I love that.
RebeccaI'm so excited.
JamieYou can tell Rebecca isn't subscribed to her podcast. I am. I don't have ads.
RebeccaI'm not giving, I'm not giving myself money. I'm, I just will not.
Jamieso I give the burnout collective money, but then the burnout collective gives intellectual bully money. So
RebeccaMm. Okay, so we're subscribed.
Jamieno, it's all my money. Like it's not burnout,
RebeccaI know. You're like laundering. You're like laundering your money back and
Jamielaundering, please. Let's not have that in a transcript about me laundering money when we're talking about me trying to find a job.
RebeccaSorry.
JamieOh,
Rebeccaon. You know, she's not laundering her money. She doesn't have any, she's unemployed.
JamieYou got two nickels to rub together. Whatever.
RebeccaYeah.
Jamieshe's unemployed. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Oh, and then what was the other? And also just like people are paying less for everything.
RebeccaOh my God. What was it? It was$18 an hour for 10 hours a week, and you're like, that is$180 a week. Kids at Target make
JamieAnd it was like pre-tax too.
RebeccaYes. What the fuck?
JamieIt's and that's I
Rebeccaon a contract and if you, even if you had multiple of those jobs on a contract, that's still nothing. That's like what?
JamieYeah. And it's I wanna work, like I need that routine. I need that routine to get, give my life like that structure and just, I don't know, it's just, it's so hard. And I'm already like, so it's no secret. Like I live in Los Angeles, and people are gonna be like, oh, I'll get like time to move, time to move somewhere cheaper or whatever.
Rebeccayou need money to move. If you are not working, where is that money coming from?
JamieExactly. And like also, like I have family here. I have a little niece and a little nephew that I plan on staying here for them, like for me, but also for them. I want the, I wanna be around when they grow up. I want them to have me around while they grow up. I think that's really important. And if I were to move anywhere, I'm, it's not like I would move to family. I'm not gonna go move in with my parents. I'm not gonna move. if I have to, I will, But
RebeccaIt still takes money. Like
Jamieyeah. And so looking at jobs too, that I'm like, I've already applied for
RebeccaI.
Jamiejobs that are way less than I was making, so that's it too, is I'm starting over.
RebeccaYep. And they know that they know the pool's so fucking small that they can pay you less and know you'll fucking take it.'cause you're desperate.
JamieYeah. And it's and that's so messed up because that's.
RebeccaOh, I'm sorry I'm not interrupting, but tell'em about what you saw yesterday when it was like, we're not gonna ask you your salary, but
JamieOh yeah. So a lot of times in applications they'll have a box that says what salary, what's your salary expectation? first of all, I know everybody's gonna say oh, but I don't know what to do. So I tell'em anyway, never tell anybody what you've made.'cause that's a illegal, it's illegal for them to ask what you made. It's not illegal for them to ask what you're looking for salary, but never tell them you need to leave the ball in their court. just be like,
RebeccaComm, measure it with my, was it comm? Measure
Jamiecommiserate with,
Rebeccacomm. Measure it
Jamiecomm, measure it
Rebeccawith the level of my experience in this
Jamieyeah. and the responsibilities of the role or something like that.
RebeccaAnd learn how to say that word we just said.
Jamielike, listen, it's been a really long couple days.
RebeccaI know.
JamieI'm an editor. God
RebeccaI dunno how to say it.
JamieNo, I know. It's just funny to me. Torah says the routine of work is so important for the neurodivergent braid too. Yes. On the other side, burnout from work is right there as well. Yes. And that's another thing too. Yeah. Is like, um, I am, I am in Pat's boat where I wanna say. Like, yes, I have a disability. Like I have a DHD, I have depression. but Rebecca's right, like I know there's still, and this is like rave dance of Rebecca's right? We need to make that, I'm gonna make that for you. I'm gonna do it somehow. I don't know how I'm gonna do it. if you could do a dance right now, this would be a perfect clip for me to grab, do it, do a dance, dance with me.
RebeccaI can't, oh, I need to
JamieThe Rebecca. The Rebecca is right. Dance.
RebeccaNo, I know what you're gonna say, and I, I don't, it's, I don't wanna be right about it either. That's the shitty thing. I don't wanna be right about that. It's a shitty thing to be right about
Jamieyeah.
Rebeccathey are going to look at that and they're gonna flag you.
JamieYep. And so I'm fine. We're fine. Yes. Discard. know, there's so much like we could still ask about so much, but Yeah, I was just talking about like the salaries. At first, I was refusing to app, like I was refusing to apply for anything that was any more than 10 K below what I was making.
RebeccaMm-hmm.
JamieI've gone to 30% lower than what I was making, and I'm applying because most jobs that I was doing, they're, they're like 50, 60%
RebeccaYep.
Jamiewhat my salary was. Like, things are low and these are remote jobs. And it's like maybe if I lived in BFE Northern Michigan, I could survive on that, but that's not where I live. I don't know how people, they're even low for, even when you live in BFE, like it's just, it's low for that period.
RebeccaWhich means that you're gonna have to get another job and to make one salary, it's gonna be two jobs. And if you're single,
JamieLet's
Rebeccait's only you. It's not double income.
Jamiemake my, let's make my, um, uh, my two minute intro video right here, right now.
RebeccaLet's do it.
JamieAll right. Hi, I'm Jamie Young. I've been a content specialist and editor, a writer, a manager, and a leader and mentor for close to 15 years now. specialties are in the gaming and tech space as well as personal finance. I need a job. Please hire me. I am a hard worker. I am funny as hell. Everybody loves me. I'm a great manager. I can teach your bad managers to be better managers. Um,
RebeccaUhhuh?
JamieI'm just an all around delight.
RebeccaYes,
JamiePlease hire me, Jamie, Jamie dot inc. At me.com. JAMIE INC. Yeah, girl Jamie. Girl jamie@atgmail.com. I need a job.
RebeccaIt was so good. It was so good. I endorse every second of it. And you're not wrong. All that is so true. That's what kills me too. You could be the fucking president if you're a fucking rapist, a cheat and a thief. And reading ability to read is like really, like, you know, iffy. They all that shit. But just even as far as intelligence and the fact that is president and somebody
Jamieor write properly either. Like
Rebeccacaliber, your quality, your integrity, your ability
Jamiemy loyalty, I'm so loyal. It's
Rebeccayou would jump on a grenade for
JamieI would jump on a grenade for anybody.
Rebeccabut if someone of your caliber can't find anything and is getting rejected, come the fuck on. Like, who, who do they wanna do this job?
JamieI don't know. maybe I should be doing the two minute intro video because,
RebeccaYou do have a nice voice, Jamie.
Jamiethat's the other thing too, is I don't think that should be expected. So I am hesitant to do something like that. I mean, I have done something like that, but, um, just, just clip it. Just don't say I need a job. I should have clipped it. I didn't. but I do need a job. Like I think that's okay to say
RebeccaI'm going to put it together and I cannot wait. There's going to be an eagle flying over at one point and patriotic
Jamiegonna make a mockery of it. We're not actually gonna be able to use this, but,
Rebeccaall of the people who are in charge of media, like media companies, that's gonna vibe with them so hard, they're gonna love that.
JamieYeah. I can also do social media.
RebeccaMm-hmm.
Jamiegreat mentor. I'm a career specialist. Can help you if you need help interviewing and finding a job.
RebeccaYou have great life advice. You're good at coaching,
Jamieyeah. And that's something I
Rebeccatelling people what to do if they need that.
JamieI love telling people what to do. No, I, I like, I like managing people. I like mentoring people. especially like young people. Oh my God. Especially the young people. hello fellow kids. I'm a great cuddle. Let's put that in your two minute video. A really good cuddler. you should do that Pat. You can be a professional cuddler. I don't really feel better. I thought if we did this episode, I would feel better. I don't feel better.
RebeccaI am sorry. I'm stuck on professional cuddler. That's
JamieYeah.
Rebeccano voluntary touching.
JamieOh yeah. you couldn't do that, but
RebeccaNo,
JamiePat would love it. Pat would love
Rebeccagood. No, I don't feel better either. And in fact, I feel angrier and I'm having a really hard time keeping my yapper shut because I am employed and
JamieYeah.
Rebeccawanna stay that way for a while.
JamieYeah. I can't be a professional cuddler on account of my massive erections, ma'am, that's inappropriate. Please put your erection away.
Rebeccamarina, please. I have a boyfriend.
JamieYes, that was good. Rebecca
RebeccaI did
Jamieokay. Now that you're clapping for yourself, you're taking away from
RebeccaThe fact of the matter is, it's not just you. There are a ton. There are a ton of other really amazing, talented people out there, and that's what kills me. There's this giant pool of amazing people. And what are you being overlooked for?
JamieAnd that's where the imposter syndrome comes back.
RebeccaYep.
Jamieclearly I'm being overlooked because there are people that are better. At this job than me, you know,
RebeccaI just had what sounds like a high thought. It is not, but it's like we're gonna make you feel bad enough about yourself, that you'll take as little money as we can possibly offer, which is gonna make you feel more bad about yourself, and we're gonna be able to fucking control. It's,
Jamiewell, it's that, or I'm gonna be miserable and then I'm just gonna be burnt out again, and then I'm back in the corporate burnout cycle.
RebeccaWe're gonna benefit off of being able to pay you 20,000 less than you made, because we know you're desperate and we know you feel shitty, so you're not gonna negotiate and make us feel better. And so you're already in a spot where you know it's, you're in a power, like a big power imbalance. It keeps you beaten down.
JamieI always tell everybody, no matter what, people will get job offers. And they're like, oh, but it's so much more than I was already making. And I'm like, I don't care. Negotiate, always negotiate. I truly believe that negotiate severance, your severance package, negotiate, your starting salary if they won't change, budge on the salary, negotiate a starting bonus. People will do starting bonuses sometimes, always negotiate. I think that's so important. But I'm curious now because like to me, I'm like, what's the worst that can happen is they say no, like they've still offered you money in the job, they're still gonna give you the job. They're just gonna say, we can't pay you that. And then you either have to say, alright, that's fine, or move on. But I wonder in this environment now, which how, what with how, I don't know what else to say besides with how hostile and toxic, recruiting is going. and job like JD job descriptions. Like I wonder if there are people now who have told, like offered somebody a job, they've negotiated and then they've said, oh no, sorry, like we've gone with somebody else.
RebeccaYes, that has happened multiple times
JamieThat's fucked.
Rebeccato lots and lots and lots of people. If you read, ask a manager
JamieYeah,
Rebeccainstances of that happening.
Jamiethey can or send the offer. I feel like that's
Rebeccayeah.
Jamiethat's fucked. I
RebeccaAnd that right there is how
JamieThat's never happened to me and I negotiate every time, but.
RebeccaThe fact that you stood up yourself means that they know that you're gonna push back on everything else,
JamieYeah, it's not even pushback. It's literally just Hey,
Rebeccato them it is.
JamieI am worth this. Yeah, no, I know, but I'm saying like in
RebeccaAnd they don't want you to think you're worth this. They don't want you to think that they think you're worth that.
Jamienow, it just seems like a giant fucking conspiracy,
RebeccaIt's called the patriarchy, Jamie. That's what it is. It's the fucking patriarchy and capitalism. You know, this.
Jamiepatriarchy, capitalism. We need to figure that out. Actually, I wanted to have an onscreen one of those, but who knows? Yeah, it's stressful. So listen, if you're out there and you're struggling to find a job, or if you are like, Hey, I know my company's hiring, or Hey, I've seen these jobs, like whatever, come in on Discord. share, share this with people. I think like we just need to share with
Rebeccalet us know.
Jamieand it can be anything we have people looking in content marketing. We have people looking in it. I know engineers that are still looking for work, which is crazy to me because I always think those are the ones that are like, so, if you're looking for work, come in post, post what you're looking for, post
RebeccaWe didn't even look over your resume for you, like if, give even just suggestions
Jamieyeah. Help with resumes, help with like interview tips and stuff like that. I know interviewing, especially as an introvert, I'm an introvert. that can be really difficult to do. So
Rebeccathere's a method to it. Alyssa taught us that. She was like, oh, didn't, you know when you interviewed you were supposed to, like when they asked you a question you're supposed to do, I don't remember, but it was like, here's the done da and da dah. And she's and you're supposed to answer them in that way. Which again, I actually didn't know that. So
JamieYeah. I think it's just,
Rebeccaand amazing.
Jamieyeah, I think it's like you answer the question and then you give an example of it and then how you solved it, basically.
RebeccaBut that was just something I hadn't really thought about. And again, I'm almost 40, I'm, how many people out there
JamieYeah.
Rebeccahaven't thought about either, who are,
JamieYeah.
Rebeccaso yeah, it's really helpful. And it's nothing but good. I dunno. Jamie, I'm sorry. I don't feel better. I know you don't feel better.
JamieListen, we're not here to make you feel better. We're here to commiserate with you and I don't know, just talk about it in hopes that. In my brain, I'm like in hopes that like things can change a little bit and, but everything is fucked up. We love you, we love you guys so much. Thank you for listening to us. Yeah, just like, All right. Bye guys.
RebeccaOkay. That's it. Go away.
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