After my burgeoning career cratered and jobs weren't pouring in because my résumé was impressing naïve, desperate managers during the cusp of the dot-com boom, I found myself in a homeless shelter with a newspaper and a phone.

And yeah, shelters are harsh. A lot of them turn us all out on the streets during the day, because shelters are exclusively for sleeping and hygiene. So you trudge around town during the day to find food, work, and a purpose in life.

So they would have an "employment resource room" with stacks of newspapers and little phone carrels for us to call anyone. And yours truly here had not the slightest clue or inkling how to actually conduct a job search. I didn't know how to design or write a CV, I didn't know how to approach employers, and of course, by the late 1990s, classified help-wanted ads were a really, really shitty way for an "IT Professional" to find anything.

But I could do nothing but try. Eventually, I found some scammy call-centers who would hire anyone. And I worked as a scammy caller in a fly-by-night call-center. I worked day labor. And landing these jobs didn't teach or train me in the slightest how to seek jobs, how to market myself, or how to interview.

I still don't really know how. ATS and gatekeepers and my lousy, holey work history? It's a lost cause in today's market. I've learned a lot of tips and tricks since then, but in the end, it's about making yourself a good product, offering value to a company, and finding the right fit before you go insane and just apply for SSDI.