[dimrover]

What you should have been doing, instead of telling her the comforting lie that the world operates on merit and this is all that matters while nudging her towards tying all her feelings of self-worth to this, is helping her build resilience so that she doesn't end up wallowing in despair after a minor career setback.

That you've cancelled Christmas to collectively endure some sort of misery spiral instead obviously isn't going to help either. What on earth are you thinking?

She's learned this harsh life lesson that the world is unfair later rather than sooner, but she has a long life and career ahead of her. Not being able to get the type of job she wants, for a little while at least, isn't the end of the world.

For what it's worth, my company, a medium-sized business that operates in the cybersecurity space, is stil actively hiring junior staff. Many other companies we work with and compete with are too. Perhaps she needs to cast her net wider than wherever she's currently looking.

[fakedang]

Easy on the fellow. OP doesn't feel great at the moment because of feeding the "lies" about merit to his daughter, the same "lies" they fed all of us back in our day that doing everything by the book pays (Lies in quotes because there's obviously a ton of substance in those statements still). You don't need to push him down further. While the lack of any celebration is not the best idea (assuming OP is still reasonably well-off), a stern rebuke won't help either.

As I mentioned elsewhere, companies are hiring. We're in Europe with a US office and we're hiring, in spite of being in a country that's practically in recession mode. But the main issue is connecting the talent to the company. That's what's messing up hiring these days. Inbound is finished and outbound isn't scalable.

[throw65434t]

Maybe because I grew up as an Asian immigrant in America during the 80’s (during the Japan scare), but I was never fed the lie that effort means success,

My parents would tell us kids to expect discrimination, so no matter how good you are, sometimes it doesn’t even matter.

They also told us how important building connections are, and it was one of the main reasons we were able to immigrate to America in the first place. That and luck.

I find myself telling my kids similar things, but in a slightly lighter manner.

[toomuchtodo]

fakedang's comment does a lot of heavy lifting, but I'm going to swing for the fences: you mention your company is hiring juniors, and OP's daughter sounds competent and has potential. Can they offer her an interview? Worst case, some time has been spent. Best case, someone who needs a job gets a job and a req gets filled.