Dotun*, 28, thought leaving his anxiety-inducing job would be the start of something better. He had ambition and a plan: escape the exhaustion and take back control of his life in three months. A year later, he’s still unemployed. Hundreds of applications sent, dozens of interviews failed, rejection after rejection, and the excitement has curdled into a slow, gnawing anxiety.
As told to Aisha Bello
I joined my first proper job straight out of university — an administrative associate at an IT consulting company in Lagos. I had interned with them in my third year and continued working remotely part-time on basic administrative tasks for the rest of my university.
So, when I finished my Business Administration degree in 2021, staying on felt like a no-brainer. The transition was seamless: familiarity with the team, the work, and even the office made it feel like a safe landing.
At first, it was exciting. I was young, eager, and ambitious. I started with a ₦50,000 student intern stipend, which increased to ₦100,000 upon my graduation and subsequent appointment as a graduate administrative associate. Two years of long hours, weekend emails, and constant firefighting later, I was promoted to operations officer, and my salary increased to ₦150,000. By January 2024, I had become operations coordinator, earning ₦200,000. On paper, it was progress, but in reality, it felt like a treadmill I couldn’t step off.
The work was relentless and anxiety-inducing. There was always something urgent, something that needed fixing, someone who needed coordinating. Every day blurred into the next. Even when I wasn’t in the office, my mind was at work — checking emails from my uncle’s house, where I lived to save on rent and food, pouring every ounce of energy into keeping things running perfectly. By the time I decided to quit, I had saved just over a million naira, enough to give me the courage to walk away from a job that had been slowly burning me out.
I thought I was ready. With three years of IT consulting experience under my belt, I was confident I could step into a business operations or support role at a tech startup, potentially even landing an international opportunity. I envisioned a more stimulating role, better pay, work-life balance, and the satisfaction of contributing to work that truly mattered, without burning myself out.
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So, in October 2024, I resigned. I told myself I was making a strategic career move, confident I would land a new role within three months.
The first weeks were liberating. I woke up without an alarm, took my time with breakfast, and started sending out at least ten applications every weekday.
I spent every waking moment on job boards, LinkedIn, and company career pages, chasing every opening I could find. But as weeks stretched into months, the excitement began to fade. I settled into a strange rhythm of hope and monotony: submitting applications, refreshing inboxes, and waiting in silence. Sometimes, I would glance at my uncle’s living room clock and wonder why I still felt so heavy, so hollow.
By April 2025, six months in, the nudges had started. Family members would ask, politely or not, ‘When will you get a new job?’ Subtle reminders that staying indoors wasn’t normal for a man my age.
It felt like everyone could see my struggle, but no one could step into it. I began questioning my choices, my self-worth, and the value I brought to the workforce. Why was I still here, in someone else’s house, waiting for a call that never came?
In June, after eight months of this invisible battle, I moved back to my hometown. My parents’ house offered a different kind of support. I could exist without constant questioning or the embarrassment of explaining why my ambitions hadn’t yet materialised. There was comfort in routine: helping my mother with her business, spending time with my siblings, cooking meals, and just being in a space that felt forgiving.
But the money I had saved was dwindling fast. Every expense, from transport to co-working spaces, electricity, internet, and food beyond home-cooked meals, reminded me that my runway was finite.
Even with the relief of being home, my job hunt didn’t get any easier. I flunked interviews, missed follow-ups, and rejection became a rhythm I couldn’t escape. Each ‘no’ chipped away at my self-esteem. My identity had been tied to having a job; my worth had been built around it. With every failure, that sense of self crumbled further, and I began to feel invisible in a market I had once assumed would welcome me with open arms.
By August, I entertained the idea of returning to my old job in Lagos. Surely, they would take me back, right? But they didn’t. That’s when it hit me: the work I had done, the effort, the hours — everything was replaceable. Someone else had stepped into my role while I was chasing bigger dreams, and no one batted an eye. The realisation was brutal, but oddly clarifying. I was a cog in a machine, and the machine didn’t need me specifically.
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By September, after nearly a year, I had stopped pouring my heart into applications. I still sent them out, more out of routine than hope, but I had finally surrendered to the market’s unpredictability. Around that time, I signed up for a product management certification at a local tech school. It was my way of reclaiming a small piece of control, to sharpen my skills while the world decided what to do with me. I threw myself into it, attending every class, completing every exercise, trying to stitch back some sense of purpose that had slipped through my fingers for months.
It’s been a year now, and the questions still linger. Is the market broken? Am I not good enough? Or has my narrow focus on a specific role kept me stuck? I don’t have the answers. My savings are nearly gone, and my options are shrinking, but there’s a strange comfort in being home. Helping my parents, spending time with my siblings, sharing meals my mother cooks, and moving with the rhythm of a family that existed long before my career ambitions. It’s humbling, grounding, and in its own quiet way, healing.
I’ve learned things the spreadsheets never taught me: resilience doesn’t always guarantee success, and perseverance doesn’t always yield results. Sometimes, it just teaches you to survive under constraints, to cling to small victories in what feels like a vacuum. In this slow, silent struggle, I’ve rediscovered fragments of myself I had long buried under CVs, performance metrics, and late-night emails.
I don’t know when I’ll find the right job, or what it will look like. I still review applications, still hold out hope quietly. But now, I also allow myself to live, even without a title, even without the validation of a salary. I contribute in small ways to my family, my learning, and my own understanding of what work and value mean.
I’m completing the product management course this December, and if I still can’t secure a job after that, I’ll start exploring other types of work, even part-time, just to keep money coming in as my runway nears zero.
That’s where I am now: still navigating, still applying, but slowly learning that survival isn’t just about employment. It’s about keeping yourself sane while the world figures out what to do with you.
