Job seeker can’t land grocery or fast-food job as rent deadline looms: ‘What is actually going on?’

A post on Reddit’s r/recruitinghell shared how they were applying exclusively to entry-level positions: grocery stores, fast food, the kind of roles that have historically been the most accessible on the employment ladder.

They were not getting hired.

With a rent payment at risk, they asked: What is actually going on?

“Is it how I look? Is it my experience? Is it the fact that it’s not a full moon so the sun and stars aren’t properly aligned to hit the recruiter’s monitor just right to light up my application?” they wrote. “I just need to get something going so we don’t miss a rent payment.”

What Reddit said

The thread confirmed that even entry-level retail and food service hiring has become unreliable

“You’d think grocery stores and fast food would at least be hiring consistently,” one commenter wrote. These sectors have historically served as the floor of the labour market, accessible regardless of experience or credentials. That floor is apparently no longer stable.

One commenter pointed to deliberate understaffing: “They want the least amount of people available to do every role. Go somewhere and watch the place mostly likely be half-staffed. They just cut costs.”

Another commenter offered another point of view: “The economy is terrible. Jobs are hard to find. Depending on your location, it could be a lot worse than other areas.”

One commenter pointed to hiring manager behaviour as an additional problem: “It was bad when the recruiters were the issue. It’s gotten significantly worse with the hiring managers who are incapable of effectively screening a candidate. It’s almost like they think something better will come along.”

The “wait for the perfect candidate” dynamic, which has driven the ghost job phenomenon at professional levels, appears to have trickled down to entry-level hiring as well.