Still more hunting

   Those that know my family, and/or have suffered through my blog know that me and my spouse are both looking for work. Too much fun for humans is a pale description of the aggravation we have seen so far, especially my husband. I don't think I've seen anyone try harder to find a job than my spouse and yet remain unemployed. He is getting plenty of interviews but no offers. We are scratching our heads over this but I have a few theories. I'm afraid it has do with our ages. We have had to remove the years of college graduation from our resumes and Linked In profiles to help in our searches.
    We are both very convinced that there is a "grey tax". People don't want to hire a person who looks older bacause of the expense. My spouse, God bless him, understands that he may have to "start over" and has adjusted his expectations accordingly. We think, however, that employers may be thinking if we hire this guy for dirt, he's going to leave as soon as he finds something better. It would appear that he can't win for losing! If hadn't already been losing his hair, I think he'd be pulling it out.
    I'm still getting used to the idea that you don't get a response to the applications you send, either. I still have memories of those have-a-nice-life postcards people would send. My spouse is very big on following up to the point where he is spending almost as much time working the phones as he is finding places to apply. I haven't followed up much myself, mostly because I have gotten used to sending out writing submissions where that's par for the course.
    I was also rudely surprised to find that not only do employers not mention training in any of the job descriptions I've been seeing, when it is mentioned, they expect you to pay for it! (No, it's not reimbursed, either.) The whole problem of being unemployed is that you don't have any money, hellloooooo! Then there are the paid subscriptions to allegedly "help" you find work. Who are these pondscum and how can they take advantage of people when they're down??!! (Ok, I admit I'm naiive but that's just uber slimy.)
     So here we are, mid March, as of this writing and both still unemployed. I'm open to suggestions, dear reader.