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Marcial Quinones, 48, had little trouble finding work without a high school diploma in the 1990s, but now, after estimating he has received more than 1,500 applications since the early 2010s, even his MBA has made it difficult for him to land a stable job in his field.
Quinones, a father of four who lives in rural eastern Pennsylvania, said he’s struggled to land long-term work in the technology and counseling fields. He’s taken part-time jobs and developed his own inventory-management software that he sells to companies, but he rarely gets called for interviews, even after rewriting his resume 24 times.
“I wish there was an easier way, but traditional methods of job hunting are being overshadowed by artificial intelligence and the lack of human interaction,” Quinones said, noting that a lack of recent work experience would likely result in applications being rejected.
Quinones is one of many Americans who have traditional professional qualifications but can’t find a steady job with a decent salary. This comes at a time when a college degree is becoming more important to land a high-paying job. Quinones shared some of the challenges of securing a job and the reasons why he’s been left behind.
A difficult but successful start
Quinones said she had a difficult childhood with an “abusive” stepfather, lived in various youth shelters, dropped out of school in the seventh grade and entered a transitional independent living facility at 18, shortly after which she gave birth to her first child.
“At that point in my life, I knew I was going to be a father so I was trying to change everything and be better,” Quinones said. “I started taking things more seriously and figuring out what to do with my life.”
He developed an interest in computers and found a side job helping fix technology for the Salvation Army and other businesses, and by age 18 he was applying for technology jobs and working as a contractor in the 1990s as companies began installing computers in their offices.
Though he didn’t have a high school diploma, he got a job as a lead engineer at a computer company in Arizona, then went to work for Intel in 1999. He worked there as an IT manager for a year before being fired.
Feeling that he was falling behind his classmates without a college degree, he enrolled in a community college in 2002, where he earned an associate’s degree in computer programming, while working part-time in the school’s IT department.
He moved with his wife and children to Arizona to be closer to his wife’s family, and because a four-year college degree was becoming a requirement for many jobs, he earned a bachelor’s degree in computer programming.
Still, he says, the job market in Arizona is “extremely tough.” He recalls going from company to company with a resume in hand and getting a few job offers. But wanting to advance his career, he enrolled in an MBA program in technology management and turned down a few jobs.
He got a job as chief technology officer for an import-export company in New Jersey, but in 2010, two years into the job, he faced difficult family circumstances and lost his job. “It was very hard to bounce back from that,” he said.
I can’t find a job
Since then, he says, he’s struggled to find work relevant to his skills — he got through a first round of interviews for IT jobs, but nothing beyond that — and recalled posting on Facebook in the early 2010s looking for work only to receive negative comments.
“I started applying to local companies for jobs, but they told me I wouldn’t be happy working there because it wasn’t a highly skilled job,” Quinones said. “This was after they didn’t take into account my educational background so I wouldn’t be overqualified, but when they looked at my work history, it was clear that I was.”
Quinones struggled with alcoholism but said he recovered eight years ago, taking up bodybuilding as a form of therapy and working part-time jobs to make ends meet.
He created an inventory management software program and wanted to deploy it to many customers. He contracted his software with businesses such as a restaurant in Puerto Rico and a Christmas company, and worked on inventory management to help small startups grow. He was offered full-time employment by a company on the condition that he use their software, but the company would not pay him for the software on top of his salary.
He also earned extra money printing images on stickers, shirts, and bottles, and driving for Uber, but recalled that after expenses, he made just $70 in a 14-hour day. He volunteered at a middle school, implementing his software to improve students’ math performance, and selling licenses to parents.
He said his wife, who works remotely as a sales manager for a company in Arizona, has helped keep their family of six afloat. Over the past decade, he’s found ways to cut costs for his family, like fixing cars and plumbing without calling in a professional.
In 2015, desperate for job security, he enrolled in a master’s program in family and marriage counseling as a backup plan, but dropped out when his scholarship ran out with four classes left. A few years later, when he looked to reenroll, he was told that changes to the curriculum meant that only half of the classes he’d taken would count.
Quinones said she was advised by a career counselor to “get a master’s degree in counseling,” but “it’s not easy because it’s expensive,” and noted that she had to put her further education on hold while she recovered from the surgery. She added that recruiters “didn’t give me a chance, even though I had three years of education.”
He still keeps in touch with his career coach from his previous university who provides workshops, reviews his resume and cover letter, and job recommendations to help him stand out. He started tailoring all his applications to each job and sending individual emails to recruiters, but only received two emails back from recruiters stating that he would consider him for a position.
Why it’s hard to get a job
In total, he applied unsuccessfully to about 1,500 jobs, according to screenshots provided to BI, and said he received five to 10 rejection letters every day this year. He rewrote his resume more than 25 times and paid $300 to have it professionally reviewed, but didn’t get a single interview. He was partially refunded the fee. He asked friends in IT and project management to review his applications.
He said he falls somewhere in the middle: overqualified for many entry-level positions but underqualified for related industry jobs. He acknowledged that hiring expectations have skyrocketed in the past few years. He tried removing some of his education from his applications to make himself appear less qualified, but it didn’t work.
He believes many of the positions he turns down are positions that companies are legally required to fill but give to internal candidates or recommenders.
“Before, I was chosen from 600 people to be interviewed,” Quinones said. “Now, if you don’t get a chance to interview, it’s hard to get a job.”
He also thinks his race may be holding him back in his job search: Once, a company told him they weren’t accepting new applications, but he gave his wife, who is white, one application anyway. He also used a contraction of his middle name, Tony, instead of Marcial, on his applications, which improved his chances of getting an interview.
He added that technology is changing so rapidly that it may be lagging behind the skills many jobs require in applicants, especially when it comes to AI.
He’s about 30 miles from the city, so he’s focused on finding remote work, but those jobs are shrinking and becoming more competitive.
“If you haven’t had a job in a while, you can’t just magically snap your fingers and make it happen,” Quinones said, noting that employers may be skeptical of gaps in employment history.
Are you having trouble finding a job? Contact this reporter nsheid lower@businessinsider.com.