Finding a job is hard
Rejection, Rejection, Rejection
Finding a job is hard. I never realized how hard it was until I started applying to non-teaching jobs. As of February 2026 I have been applying to at least 10 jobs every month. The most I've applied to was 16 jobs in a single month. And guess what? I have been rejected over and over and over again. In this post I'd like to share my thoughts on finding a job while getting over a burnout. Spoiler alert: it's tough.
Papers, Please
It has become very clear to me that the right papers are incredibly important for basically anything that you'd like to do in the workfield. I have been rejected by jobs that would pay me significantly lower than my teaching job all because I didn't have the right papers. Keep in mind that I only applied for these positions because I had a lot of experience within these fields (i.e. administration, IT helpdesk, Instructional Design etc.).
No matter my experience, all that matters are my credentials and since I only have a teaching degree and a history degree nobody gives me the time of day. As you can imagine this has been rather frustrating as most of these jobs aren't exactly my "passion". I just need a normal job to take care of myself...
Job Interviews
To be fair, I have been invited to several job interviews. Some were on location while others were online. I don't think anyone genuinely likes these, so it will come as no surprise that I wasn't a fan of these either. The first couple of job interviews were absolutely awful. After several months I was finally invited to a job interview by a start-up that needed an in-house Instructional Designer and with my almost a decade of teaching experience I seemed to be the right fit.This company managed to string me along for almost 2 months before I finally decided to call it quits myself, instead of waiting for their bullshit. They apparently needed to rail in several big clients before they felt safe enough to hire me. At first this made a lot of sense to me, but after waiting for 6 weeks and getting a call every Monday where I was told to "just wait 1 more week, then we'll know for sure" I told them to politely fuck off. The kids nowadays like to call everything a "humiliation ritual" and this at first made me cringe. But I get it now...
Now what?
After all of this bullshit it got me thinking: now what? Will I ever find a job? Will I ever be able to move out of my partens' house? Will I ever be able to genuinely take care of myself? I don't mean this in a dramatic way. I don't feel hopeless or desperate. These are genuine questions that I, at this point in time, can't answer in a positive way with a straight face.I'm sure I'll find a job eventually, even if it would take another year. To me, that's not really what I'm afraid of. I don't mind getting paid way less if it means I'll have a job I'll enjoy. Or hell, a job I at least find easy to do and can tollerate. I'll settle for that too!
What I'm afraid of is the housing market here in The Netherlands. I genuinely, out of the bottom of my heart, do not want to buy a house/apartment. Due to my frugality and stock portfolio I am at a point in my life where I'd actually be able to buy a house. But my brother in Christ, I don't want to spend all of my money on bricks. I'd need an insane mortgage too and I'm the kind of person that avoids debt like the plague!
But if I'm not going to buy a house to keep my monthly costs relatively low, then there aren't many options left for me. Renting outside of social housing is basically impossible on a salary lower than my teaching salary and social housing isn't really an option either due to insane shortages within the (social) housing market.
I don't mind living with my parents, I love them to death. But I'm not going to spend all of my money and go into insane debt just to own my own home. I'd rather live with my parents for another decade, invest as much money as I can, and then live off of my investments instead. If I can eventually move out then that's great, but I don't have high hopes for any of it. I expected my 30's to look a lot different, that's for shit sure.
