The Hope & Apply Method. How I Built an Entire Career Off Rejection Emails, Ghosting, and the Occasional Delusional Optimism at 2 a.m.

Do I want to talk about my job search?

That’s like asking a raccoon if it wants to rant about garbage conditions at the landfill.

Yes. Loudly. With visual aids and snacks stolen from emotionally unavailable recruiters.

We are now entering month… whatever. Time has no meaning when you’re living between job portals, application confirmation screens, and the crushing silence that follows. My current strategy? I call it the Hope & Apply Method™. It’s not a formal system, but it’s consistent. Like heartbreak, or the smell of burnt coffee in a WeWork bathroom.

Here’s the ritual:

Step 1: Apply to 27 jobs at 2 a.m.

There’s something about the spiritual energy of a Tuesday night where I suddenly believe I’m qualified to be a Senior Director of Blockchain Synergy, a Junior Dolphin Therapist, and a Remote Productivity Evangelist all in one sitting.

It doesn’t matter that I have no experience in half these fields.

All that matters is that I’m unemployed, slightly panicked, and fueled by blind optimism and expired peanut M&Ms.

Step 2: Immediately regret 24 of them

Why did I apply to a job that listed “emotional grit” and “ability to pivot without context” as requirements?

Why did I write “passion for disruption” in my cover letter when I haven’t disrupted anything except my own sleep schedule?

Why did I lie and say I’m “proficient in Excel” when I once cried during a VLOOKUP?

No answers. Just vibes. And a growing Google Doc titled:

“Jobs I Prayed Wouldn’t Actually Call Me.”

Step 3: Whisper “Maybe this one’s different”

Like I’m in a toxic relationship… with Indeed.

Every time I hit “Submit,” I lean in like I’m about to kiss fate on the forehead and murmur, “Maybe this time they’ll see me. The real me. The version that’s never sweaty during video interviews and doesn’t write follow-up emails that sound like desperate poetry.”

Step 4: Get ghosted harder than a bad Hinge date

We’re talking “three interviews deep and then vanishes like smoke” ghosted.

We’re talking “you log into the portal and the job listing is gone like it never existed” ghosted.

We’re talking “they accidentally left your name in the rejection email CC list with 147 other people and still spelled it wrong” ghosted.

At this point, I’m not even applying for jobs—I’m submitting résumés into a haunted house.

Bonus Round: Justification and Breakdown

If I sound bitter, it’s because I am. But also, it’s because I’ve had time to reflect. Here’s why this whole process has been especially wild:

• I am overqualified, under-verified, chronically exhausted, and somehow got rejected from a job that didn’t even exist.

  
  

  No seriously—got a rejection email for a listing that was “removed due to internal restructuring.”

  
  

  Which basically means someone’s nephew got hired and I got a polite lie in Helvetica.

• I once got a rejection email that started with “Congratulations!”

  
  

  Turns out, I’d made it to the final round of rejections. I didn’t even know that was a bracket.

  
  

  Thank you for the emotional jump-scare, corporate America.

• My résumé has been reviewed more times than my credit score.

  
  

  And both of them are quietly judging me.

  
  

  I’ve changed my bullet points so many times, they now read like the stages of grief.

  
  

  “Collaborated with team”

  
  

  “Led with integrity”

  
  

  “Survived 47 interviews without screaming”

  
  

  “Adapted emotionally to absolutely nothing working out”

And then there’s the interview circus…

Where someone asks me what kind of kitchen utensil I’d be in a team environment (I said spatula—flexible, supportive, emotionally flat), and then follows it with “Can you walk me through a time when you failed at something deeply important, preferably while crying?”

Sure.

How about this entire job search?

What’s wild is—I keep going.

I keep applying.

Keep rewriting.

Keep believing.

Why?

Because if I stop, I have to admit that the system is broken and possibly run by an algorithm that thinks I’m both underqualified and a risk to company culture because I once used the phrase “trauma-informed workflow” in a cover letter.

And also—because I don’t know what else to do.

Hope is not a strategy. But it is a reflex.

And so I sip my lukewarm coffee, crack my knuckles, open up that “Recently Posted” tab again, and whisper:

“Maybe this one’s different.”

Probably not.

But maybe.

And that’s enough to try again.