After submitting her 300th job application since being laid off last October, a woman in Washington says she has reached her breaking point and felt compelled to vent. The woman, who says she previously worked as a Senior Program Manager at Amazon, shared her frustration on r/mildlyinfuriating, describing the job market as both difficult and “downright depressing.” Despite her 16 years of experience at Amazon, she says securing a new role has become an exhausting and overwhelming challenge.
When Pyeppers first joined Amazon in 2010, she started at the entry level as a customer service associate and worked diligently to move into a managerial position. However, after being laid off, she says she also lost much of her professional network, as many of her former Amazon colleagues were either laid off as well or had fallen out of contact with her.
This made it even harder for her to discover new opportunities through word of mouth. Thousands of Reddit users empathized with her experience, showing their support by leaving encouraging comments or upvoting messages of solidarity.
The Former Washington Manager’s Post Drew Overwhelming Support
“Three hundred applications since October is genuinely brutal. I hope number 301 is the one that ends the streak,” one commenter wrote. Another suggested that Pyeppers hire a professional to rewrite her résumé, saying the approach had helped them land the job they wanted.
Another user attributed the high number of rejections to AI-driven screening: “I applied to about 20 jobs in my area, and each application was rejected in under a minute. A friend later explained that some companies use AI to automatically reject resumes that don’t include specific keywords.”
Because she previously worked as a program manager at Amazon, Pyeppers says roughly 80% of the jobs she applies for are similar roles. The remaining 20% are more speculative applications, submitted in the hope that she might get lucky with an unexpected opportunity. She also shared that she has applied for positions she considers herself “overqualified” for, such as roles at a public library or within a community organization, but has still had no success.
Although Pyeppers says she customizes her résumé for every job posting, an offer has remained elusive. Still, the former Amazon senior program manager is not giving up, buoyed by the support of hundreds of people who responded to her Reddit post.
The Washington ex-manager concluded by writing, “Thank you to everyone who has sent kind and encouraging words!! It’s hard to keep your head up sometimes, but I’m going to keep at it until I find something!”
