When I was last unemployed, I spent two-and-half years job hunting, getting no bites until about two years in, when I figured out several radical changes in my approach all at once. In half a year I landed multiple interviews and eventually a job, but there's still a lot I screwed up along the way.

Then the job that I did land came with a bunch of supports for new hires that were destroyed by the pandemic. Not only did I have to learn a lot about how to be effective in a large corporate environment the hard way, but I made some big mistakes along the way that delayed my career by at least a couple years.

On top of this, I've lived in two foreign countries and two cities in Texas where I had to learn to build good habit and social support networks each time—and without the benefit of ADHD meds. (I was not diagnosed with ADHD until 34 and that made it hard to get meds in Texas and basically impossible in abroad.) I absolutely do not recommend doing this the hard way and I've learned a lot from the experience of putting my life back together after failure several times now.