A crying Gen Z job seeker with two degrees and three languages has said she is the ‘most humbled’ after going door-to-door for a minimum-wage job and striking out, adding that she ‘just wants to be a TikTokker’.
Lohanny Santos, 26, from Brooklyn, uploaded a video of herself crying while holding a stack of resumes to TikTok.
‘This is the most humbled I’ve ever felt in my life,’ she said and told viewers she was trying to meet potential employers in person asking for a job – but this has been unsuccessful so far.
She added: ‘It’s honestly a little bit embarrassing because I’m literally applying for minimum wage jobs and some of them are being like “we’re not hiring” […] This is not what I expected.’
Santos, who graduated from Pace University with a degree in communications and one in acting, said she speaks three languages and seems devastated after she was unable to find a minimum wage job, which would pay her $16 per hour in New York.
Lohanny Santos (pictured), 26, from Brooklyn, uploaded a video of herself crying while holding a stack of resumes to TikTok
Santos admitted that ‘this sucks’ as she wiped away the tears rolling down her face. She said she would not give up her job search because she ‘literally needs to make money’
‘This sucks,’ she added as she wiped away the tears rolling down her face. ‘I just want to be a TikTokker if I’m being so for real with you but I can’t be delusional anymore… Like I literally need to make money, so I’m just going to keep trying.’
Santos is not the only one unable to find a job in New York right now, as data by the New York State department of Labor reveals that unemployment is on the rise.
The unemployment rate for New York City was 5.4 per cent in December, up 0.1 of a per cent from November and an increase of 0.3 per cent from December 2022. New York State’s rate was 4.5 percent in December 2023.
Santos’ video seemed to resonate with many Zoomers – colloquial name for Gen Z members – as it got 3.3million likes on TikTok.
But not everyone was sympathetic towards Santos’ situation.
One commenter wrote: ‘Maybe if you didn’t major in communications and acting, you wouldn’t be in that situation.’
Another asked: ‘Something tells me she is doing this for the content?’
Santos – who promised to ‘keep trying’ as she cried (pictured above) is not the only one unable to find a job in New York right now, as data by the New York State department of Labor reveals that unemployment is on the rise
While Santos received sympathetic comments by young people in the same situation, she also received a lot of criticism, with some users even accusing her of faking her job search and crying for the camera
Some told her that her degrees and languages alone wouldn’t get her a job, since experience was what mattered most to employers.
‘This used to be a normal process of finding a job when you have no experience, the only difference is that we’d do it while going to college, not waiting until after,’ a user wrote.
Others said that Santos chose the wrong majors in college. ‘Well picking communications and acting ain’t a great start,’ one said.
Another added: ‘Acting like your better than everyone else then crying while applying for an everyday job is comedic, stepping off your high horse must be tough.’
But one Instagram user suggested it wasn’t Santos’ fault that she couldn’t find a job and that it was a problem with her whole Gen Z generation instead.
‘The problem is your generation, and everyone else’s perception that you guys are just nothing but trouble.
‘All you wanna do is protest, freak out over pronouns, freak out over anything in the office that has to do with work, microaggressions, identity politics…
‘Business people don’t want that stuff in their offices. Sorry now you guys are seeing how your schools failed you.’
In the end, Santos’ public job search paid off as she got her first brand partnership with a contraception pill company.
Some of her followers thought her viral video, which showed her crying on camera with the stack of resumes in hand, might have been for show.
‘This is planned,’ one user wrote while another commented: ‘”I have a degree in acting and can cry on the spot.” I don’t want a real job I want an easy way out and sponsorships.’
A third accused her of ‘just trying to get attention as an influencer so she doesn’t have to get a real job’.
