The Other Side

In Part 1, I wrote about the identity erosion that happens when unemployment stretches from months into years. In Part 2, I talked about practical survival—especially the income problem that so much career advice ignores.

Now let's talk about how this ends.

Because it does end. Not always the way you expect. Not always when you expect. But the arc of long-term unemployment has a conclusion, and you have more influence over it than it feels like when you're in the middle.

I want to tell you what actually worked for me—and what I've seen work for others. No platitudes. Just the truth about finding your way out.

The Vision Problem

Let me start with what might seem abstract but is actually the most practical thing I can tell you.

By the time you've been unemployed for a year or more, you've probably lost something crucial: your sense of what you're building toward. Not just "I want a job"—but a real vision of what kind of work, what kind of life, what kind of future you're trying to create.

This happens naturally. The job search grinds you down. Rejection after rejection erodes your sense of what's possible. You start lowering expectations, then lowering them again. Eventually, "I just need something" replaces any vision you once had.

Here's why this matters: you can't find something if you don't know what you're looking for.

I don't mean you need to know exactly what job title you want. I mean you need some sense of direction—what kind of work energizes you, what kind of environment you thrive in, what you're actually good at, what matters to you beyond just getting paid.

Without this, you're adrift. You apply to everything and nothing. You can't tell the difference between opportunities that fit and opportunities that don't. You're vulnerable to taking the wrong thing out of desperation.

How to Recover Your Vision

This might sound like therapy homework, but it's not. It's practical work that makes everything else more effective.

Start with what you know you don't want. If you've been unemployed for a while, you've probably learned things about yourself. Jobs you applied for that you realize you didn't actually want. Environments that would have been wrong. Roles that would have used none of your real strengths. Write these down. The negative space helps define the positive.

Think about when you were last engaged. Not happy—engaged. The times when work felt like it mattered, when you were using your actual abilities, when the hours went by without noticing. What was true about those situations? Can you name the elements that made them work?

Identify what you're actually good at. Not your resume skills—your real abilities. What do people come to you for? What feels easy to you but hard to others? What would you do even if no one paid you? These questions aren't meant to be inspiring; they're meant to identify your actual value.

Ask yourself what you'd regret not doing. If you're in your 40s, 50s, 60s—what would you regret looking back? What path not taken? Sometimes unemployment, as brutal as it is, creates an opening to pursue something you wouldn't have pursued otherwise.

The goal here isn't to find your "passion" or any of that. It's to create a filter. A way to look at opportunities and quickly assess whether they move you toward something or just away from unemployment.

What Actually Got Me Out

Here's the truth about what ended my three years of unemployment: I finally stopped trying to be "marketable" and started actually using what I was good at.

Over 800 job applications, I had been trying to present myself as something employers might want. Crafting my resume to match job descriptions. Trying to look like the candidates who were getting hired. Positioning myself for roles that sounded achievable rather than roles that matched my actual abilities.

That approach got me nowhere. What finally worked was the opposite.

Before I was unemployed, I had run my own e-commerce business for seven years. During those years, I learned how to do everything a one-person business requires: SEO, Google Ads, online marketing, web design, customer experience, the works. Not because I set out to learn these things, but because I had to in order to survive.

When I stopped trying to fit job descriptions and started looking for places where those actual skills applied, everything changed.

I found a software development company that needed marketing help. Not a marketing role in the traditional sense—a contractor role doing website and online marketing. The kind of work I already knew how to do because I'd done it for my own business for years.

The interview was different because I wasn't performing. I could speak intelligently about their gaps and what I would do about them. I had real experience solving real problems, not just theoretical knowledge.

The Unexpected Twist

Here's the thing about that marketing role: I hated it.

Not the work itself—I knew how to do it. But marketing wasn't what I actually wanted to do. It was just what I had proven I could do.

What saved me was realizing that my skill set was broader than I understood. Running one-person businesses multiple times meant I had developed abilities in areas I hadn't really catalogued: strategic thinking, understanding return on investment and unit economics, design, user experience, usability. The same fundamentals that made me effective at marketing applied to other areas.

Within the same company, I transitioned from marketing to design—front-end and interface work. Same underlying skills, different application. And I was much happier.

Because it was a contract role, I could continue doing project work on the side. I had also launched a small web design business during my unemployment. Between the contract job and the project work, I ended up with a higher income than I'd ever had while traditionally employed.

That hadn't been the plan. But it worked.

The Momentum Shift

I only had that contract job for about a year. But it did something more important than pay the bills: it started momentum moving in a different direction.

Instead of the depleting momentum of unemployment—where every month you have fewer resources, fewer options, less confidence—I was building positive momentum. More project work. More connections. More proof that I could deliver value.

Within a year, I was doing more project work than contract work. Started another one-person business. The snowball was rolling, but now it was rolling with me instead of over me.

That's work. That's income. And I wouldn't have confronted it if I hadn't been forced to.

Coming Through Changed

I need to tell you something important about coming through long-term unemployment: you don't go back to who you were before.

Three years of unemployment changed me. Some of that change was damage—fear, insecurity, a wariness about stability that I still carry. But some of it was growth I couldn't have gotten any other way.

I understand now that income comes from solving problems for other people. That my value isn't my job title—it's my ability to do things that matter. That "marketable" is less important than "actually good at." That skills I developed doing one thing can transfer to other things in ways I wouldn't have predicted.

When you come through this, you won't be the same person who went in. That's not failure—that's transformation. The question is what you do with it.

For me, eventually I built ReApply. Not immediately—it took years and another career chapter first. But those 800 applications, all those rejections, the hard-won understanding of what actually works and what doesn't—that's part of why this exists.

I wanted to create tools that would help other people navigate what I navigated, with more support than I had. Using my abilities to create something valuable. To be of service to other people. Which, ultimately, is what work really is.

What If You're Still In It?

If you're reading this and you're still deep in long-term unemployment, I want to say something directly to you.

This is survivable. I know it doesn't feel like it. I know the shame and the fear and the creeping despair. I know the way time distorts when the future is uncertain and the past feels like it belongs to a different person.

But other people have been here and come through. I'm one of them. And if you've read this far, you're doing something that matters: you're looking for a way out. That's the first step.

Here's what I'd tell you:

Stop trying to be marketable. Figure out what you're actually good at. The skills you've developed—maybe in jobs, maybe in side projects, maybe in just living your life—are more transferable than you realize. What do you know how to do that other people struggle with?

Get income coming in. Take the project work, the contract role, the imperfect opportunity. Not just for the money (though the money matters), but because employment begets employment. It's easier to find a job when you have a job.

Don't lose your vision. Or if you've lost it, start rebuilding it. Not a perfect vision—just a direction. Something you're building toward, not just running from.

Remember that this has an ending. I can't tell you when. But unemployment is a chapter, not the whole book. What comes after is partly up to you.

The Other Side

I called this post "The Other Side" because that's where I'm writing from.

Not as someone who has it all figured out—I'm going through my second layoff right now, and the fear is familiar. But as someone who knows from experience that there is another side. That the tunnel does have an end. That you can come through this changed but intact.

The vision you hold, the practical steps you take, the way you protect yourself through the long middle—these determine what kind of person you are when you reach the other side.

Make it someone you're proud of.

New to this series? Start with Part 1: When Unemployment Becomes Your Identity, then read Part 2: Staying Whole While You Wait.

Earlier in your journey? Our After the Layoff series covers the first 90 days.