Laid off three times in two years. Over the next four months: fifty applications, twenty-nine rejections, and fifteen companies that never replied at all.
He kept a list on his phone — every company, the date he applied, the date the no came. Where no answer ever came, he wrote a dash. Counting, he said, was proof to himself that he was still trying. Some weeks, adding a single row to the list felt like the only thing he had accomplished.
After about six weeks he stopped telling his family about interviews. He even told his mother no when something was scheduled, because explaining another rejection had grown heavier than the rejection itself.
Then he interviewed with an entrepreneur who hired him. What struck her was not the run of rejections but the composure: he apologised for the gap before she could ask about it, described the layoffs without blaming anyone, and stayed calm under pressure while making his case. She decided he had been failed by a slow, indifferent process — not by his ability.
On the way out he thanked her three times, and held her hand. His message to anyone in the dash-filled months: keep the list, keep applying, keep showing up.