673 Versions of the Same Life
I’ve just read a BBC News article about Karyna Lohvynenko, 21, who is completing a master’s degree in governance and has a CV that includes work at the United Nations and councils in the UK and US. Karyna has applied for more than 400 jobs, from politics to pulling coffee in cafés, and secured just three interviews. At the time of writing, she is, of course, still jobless.
I could have stopped reading halfway through, because the article ends as these pieces so often do: with someone reminding us to tailor our CVs, optimise for search, do this, do that. Well, Sherlock, we all do that. Repeatedly. Obediently. Relentlessly. I seem to have spent whole years producing minor variations of the same professional history for employers who could not even be bothered to reject me with an automated email. At the last count, before I embraced video-making in earnest, I was leafing through 673 versions of the same life on paper. None of them yielded a job.
Karyna’s story, however contemporary it sounds, is neither unique nor especially of 2026. When my then boyfriend started applying for jobs in the late 1990s, he sent out hundreds of tailored CVs and took four years to land a position stacking shelves in a supermarket. When I did the same, applying to graduate schemes, it took me nineteen months. My funnel, too, ran from hundreds of applications to three interviews to one offer, all against the same backdrop of institutional silence.
The problem, however, is not confined to graduates. Only days ago, LinkedIn served me a post (one of many of its kind) from a man who said he had applied for 9,700 jobs after being laid off from a design role. He had exhausted his savings, lost his housing, and was living in his car while continuing to apply. At that point, what exactly is “tailor your CV” even supposed to mean? How many times must a person reword the same life before we admit that the problem may not be insufficient effort, but a labour market organised around attrition, volume and indifference?
This fixation on tailoring one’s CV is a form of ritual deference that wildly overstates its power to open doors in a system organised around non-response. It persists because it is easier to tinker with the applicant than to confront the possibility that the process itself is indifferent, saturated, and structurally incapable of recognising most of the people passing through it. When hundreds, if not thousands, of people are competing for the same role, the problem is not always that they failed to produce the 674th improved version of themselves.
The current panic about AI risks flattering the past: plenty of applicants were already being sifted into silence long before software arrived to take the blame.Confidence doesn’t always arrive with a bold entrance. Sometimes, it builds quietly, step by step, as we show up for ourselves day after day. It grows when we choose to try, even when we’re unsure of the outcome. Every time you take action despite self-doubt, you reinforce the belief that you’re capable. Confidence isn’t about having all the answers — it’s about trusting that you can figure it out along the way.
The key to making things happen isn’t waiting for the perfect moment; it’s starting with what you have, where you are. Big goals can feel overwhelming when viewed all at once, but momentum builds through small, consistent action. Whether you’re working toward a personal milestone or a professional dream, progress comes from showing up — not perfectly, but persistently. Action creates clarity, and over time, those steps forward add up to something real.
You don’t need to be fearless to reach your goals, you just need to be willing. Willing to try, willing to learn, and willing to believe that you’re capable of more than you know. The road may not always be smooth, but growth rarely is. What matters most is that you keep going, keep learning, and keep believing in the version of yourself you’re becoming.
