This essay as told is based on a conversation with John Huân Vũ, a senior Visa consultant living in San Jose. He previously worked for PayPal for 10 years before being fired in 2024. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

When I was fired from PayPal in July 2024, I was in complete shock.

The next day, I felt very strange that I wasn’t working more. For about the first week, I tried to come to terms with what had happened and figure out my next steps.

After that, I started applying for jobs, lots of jobs.

Over the next 16 months, I applied for more than 6,000 jobs at more than 2,000 companies and completed dozens of interviews, which I tracked on a spreadsheet.

As my husband’s and my financial situation deteriorated, I had to completely rethink how I looked for work. We rely on a food pantry and weigh difficult decisions such as selling our house or pursuing opportunities outside the United States. It was one of the most difficult stretches of my life.

The job market has changed since the last time I applied for a job.

Before I was laid off, my husband and I had planned a six-week trip to New Zealand for the following December, as part of the paid sabbatical I took after 10 years at PayPal.

After the layoff, we debated canceling it, but decided to continue, partly because I was somewhat optimistic about my chances of getting a job. When I got home, I started to get scared because the job market seemed very difficult, so I increased my applications.

I used job boards like LinkedIn and HiringCafe to find openings and applied using autocomplete tools whenever they were available. If there was a job that I felt at least 50% qualified for, I applied. On my busiest day, August 17, 2025, I applied for 88 jobs. I have never paid anyone, nor used an AI bot, to submit requests for me.

During this process, I learned that the job market had changed dramatically since the last time I looked for a job, more than a decade earlier. I was interviewed by AI and found that some job offers disappeared within 48 hours or after the first few hundred applications. Every morning, I checked Slack job boards and professional communities to find and apply to new positions before they disappeared.

I also realized that my old resume wasn’t cutting it anymore, so I completely revamped it for applicant tracking systems and cut it from two pages to one.

Those changes helped me get more traction, but I still he struggled to get an offer.

We almost had to sell our house.

As the interviews began to pile up, I came up short. The longer my search went on, the more the whole process seemed like a nightmare.

My husband owns an interior design business, but without my income, we had to start making some difficult decisions. After reviewing the spreadsheet I had used to track our finances for years, I realized that if I didn’t find a job soon (or if my husband didn’t change jobs) we would probably have to sell our house.

To save money on food, we rely on Buy Nothing groups, coupons and SNAP benefits. I also learned many ways to cook a potato to keep our food budget as low as possible.

We even depended on food pantries. I will never forget job interviews while sitting in my car waiting in line to pick up food for the week. It wasn’t unusual for me to arrive at the food pantry two or three hours before it opened to make sure I was the first person in line and then rush home for an interview.

The only way we got through that period was through the support of my church community, along with the people who helped us through the Buy Nothing groups and the food pantry. We couldn’t have done it alone.

Relationships made the difference

During my job search, I posted on Facebook about the challenges I was facing. One of those posts caught the attention of someone I had met at work years before, while he was at Visa and I was at PayPal.

Our relationship went beyond work. In 2022, when he was preparing to move from Brazil to the Bay Area, I shared tips with him about the area and helped him acclimatize.

In October 2025, 15 months after I was laid off, he contacted me to offer me an opening for a senior consultant position at Visa. My first reaction was that I might not be fully qualified for the position, but he encouraged me to apply anyway.

Later, I learned that I had advocated for myself to the recruiter and interviewers, remembering my work ethic, how I communicated with people, and how I got things done.

My last interview with a vice president took place last November, when I turned 40. Shortly after I received the offer.

After 16 months of unemployment, I finally went back to work.

My advice to other job seekers.

One piece of advice I have for other job seekers is to take an honest look at your resume. I always protected my resume, but renewing it turned out to be one of the best decisions I made.

Furthermore, the human side is still important. Looking back, improving my resume and continuing to apply helped me get interviews, but having someone remember my work is what ultimately changed my life.

My job search reminded me how important it is to help other people whenever possible. I now volunteer at the same food pantry that helped me during my unemployment. For me, it’s a beautiful moment of coming full circle.

Do you have a story to share about searching for a job? If so, please contact the journalist by email at jzinkula@businessinsider.comor via Signal at jzinkula.29.