[randomdrake]

> Retail and restaurant companies won't ever respond to my applications, despite constantly spamming the same jobs month after month.

I don't know of any place in the U.S. that doesn't have wanted signs in the windows for restaurant work. Between fast food, back of house, or front of house, there really are a ton of options both in downtown areas and suburbs from my experience.

Have you actually gone to one of these locations, physically, and applied? Did you follow up instead of just dropping an application by and hoping for the best?

[code_makes_food]

This. I'm taking a break from big tech, and started a restaurant a couple years ago. We get a lot of people sending emails/social media messages saying they want a job, but so far we've only hired those who have come into the location (with great success). I use it as a litmus test for someone being able to actually show up for the job when hired.

The old adage of "why don't you go down and ask for a job" still works in service/retail.

[autoexec]

> Have you actually gone to one of these locations, physically, and applied?

Are there any places these days that are sitting around with stacks of paper job applications waiting for someone to walk in and ask for one? I figured by now just about everyone would ask you to apply online and showing up in person would just get you strange looks like "how has this person never heard of the internet?"

[randomdrake]

I don’t know about the method of application, but the restaurant industry, in particular, has almost always operated on hiring bodies that actually walk in the door versus applications from someone online. Especially true for entry-level stuff in my experience (10 years in the service industry).

[aprdm]

No, service and retail still like when people show in person