SoOoOoo, since earning an MA in May of 2011, I have been laid off 5 times, on jobs not related at all to my former career experience or in a field of interest where I can utilize skills sets I have earned since May of 2011.
For me, my worksearch each day is not an ordinary exercise I commit my time and energy too. It's difficult finding paid work and in particular, because I'm on a last round of emergency-tiered unemployment benefits (which are painfully small - it's less than my basic monthly cost of living), I've taken to developing field notes - ethnographic accounts - of the particular barriers I face while competing to be hired for a job.
Here's a "snapshot" of a identifiers and driving influences associated with use of a particular item identified. A sample of items I record:
age related practices, class practices, sex & gender based practices, company culture (-/+), power structure: Culture of Obedience (top down) or if the company employs bottom-up practices, etc., to items pertaining to whether a company fosters collaborative efforts in a community-based ways to items related to the what the company feels constitutes Green or Sustainability industry standards (if there's any trend to note on social responsibility, toward that end). I also look at how long it takes to complete a company's work application and mechanistic features that drive the application process.
I do this for myself because it's a feasible way for me to develop a record of barriers I face and there have been a few times I have taken my notebook with me to mandantory appts at the employment office, because agents are frustrated with how it is that I can't find a job, and I show them my matrix. The look on each person's face is priceless.