I spent over a year looking for a job and finally got a federal contract. Then DOGE happened.

• After 12 years as a freelancer, Michael Stahl wanted more stability and began job hunting.
• More than a year later, he was offered a contract reservist communications role with FEMA.
• But the offer was rescinded amid the White House DOGE office's cost-cutting drive.

When I told people in late February that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had offered me a job, the typical response was, "I thought they were getting shut down."

President Donald Trump had been outspoken about dismantling FEMA, an agency that's come under scrutiny by Elon Musk and the White House DOGE office. Yet I was offered a role that month as an agency "reservist."

Reservists are hourly wage workers deployed to disaster areas with 24 hours' notice for unknown lengths of time. I may have won the job when I jokingly told my interviewers that as a single, childless freelance writer, "I have no life."

Excitement and relief washed over me when I received the offer. My new job would be writing press releases, blog posts, and other content communicating how FEMA was responding to a disaster.

Though I'd be paid only when deployed, this job granted me another much-needed revenue stream. While I would have embraced a consistent full-time position, this intermittent job at FEMA meant I could better maintain my freelance lifestyle — which still has its perks. I also looked forward to the travel when assignments manifested.

After more than a year of toiling in one of the toughest job markets in recent memory, the FEMA job offer alone provided me with greater peace of mind and boosted my confidence.

Once proud, I was left with shaken confidence

I began my freelance writing career in 2012, and after proudly growing as both a journalist and a content producer, I felt it coming apart a couple of years ago.

Though my skills had improved, opportunities dwindled. Publications folded, and newsroom budgets were slashed. Freelance jobs grew increasingly tougher to land, and when I scored assignments, the rates were lower. I worked harder and longer for less money.

While taking whatever freelance gigs I could get, I began searching for a full-time job in late 2023.

I looked in journalism, but the industry was experiencing massive layoffs, so I also applied in sectors where my skills were transferable: marketing, public relations, and communications.

I craved consistency for better mental health and to build a future where annual vacations and retirement seemed possible. I was sure I'd secure a spot somewhere before my savings ran out.

But as the months passed with barely any responses to my applications, my credit card debt and anxiety level ballooned. I had a strong, highly transferable skillset and 12 years of experience working with legacy publications and big-name brands but was seemly not hirable. I was crushed, scared, and in disbelief.

My financial situation became so dire that I took a job as a part-time substitute teacher, which was disheartening and felt like a step backward because I'd left education to become a writer.

A lucky break led to relief

Then in December, I wrote about my struggles for Business Insider. A friend of mine posted the essay on Facebook, and a couple of his followers wrote supportive comments. One of them, a FEMA worker, said the agency needed writers and connected me to a recruiter.

When I chatted with FEMA's interviewers on February 7, they responded warmly to my answers. I grew to really want the reservist role, especially after learning of growth opportunities in the agency. After enrolling in training, I could apply to higher-up positions in FEMA, but at the very least, I'd have a boosted résumé with bona fide communications experience.

On March 31, I filled out background check paperwork and had my fingerprints taken in the FEMA offices at One World Trade Center. As a New Yorker who worked in Manhattan on 9/11, I felt somber walking into that building. But upon leaving, I no longer felt demoralized by the endless job searching.

Then came yet another gut punch

Hours after my fingerprinting appointment, I got an email saying my offer from FEMA was rescinded. The email said it was due to "a change in operational needs." A week before, it was reported that FEMA had frozen all external hiring and onboarding of new employees.

My connection at the agency is hopeful that the freeze will be lifted and that I'll still be awarded a position.

Putting it mildly, to be in the job market right now is to grapple with encroaching self-doubt.

My résumé perfectly outlined my decade-plus of successful writing. But for 14 months, I'd applied to countless jobs, many of which I was overqualified for, and landed only four interviews. I thought every interview went well. When rejection emails arrived, prospective employers repeatedly mentioned an outsize response to job postings.

"How good of a writer am I if I can't get a job?" I often thought. The lack of humanity in employment searches — the virtual applications, the scams, the ghosting — means job hunters are navigating a vast landscape painfully alone, unaware of what they may be doing "wrong."

I've read discourse in the people management community about hiring workers with the right character traits and skills rather than experience, but that practice won't be normalized if recruiters are increasingly using artificial intelligence to scan résumés.

I firmly believe my lack of traditional full-time employment at companies, with position titles, has held me back because the nonhuman entities scanning my résumé don't process what I've done as "experience."

It seems the best way to get a job right now is through personal recommendations. But the finest workers available are probably not the ones Dan in accounting is friendly with. Why use these online tools if they're not producing high-quality results?

Now I'm back on the digital job boards, more uncertain than ever about my future employment. My fingers are tightly crossed as I continue clicking "apply" into the AI ether.