When the dot com bubble popped, I was out of work for an extended period. I ended up living with some older friends (about 10 years older than myself and I was about 40 at that time). They gave the "hand out resumes" advice along with thinking that I could get a part time gig at the grocery store (packing groceries). They never understood that most tech recruitment at that time went through recruiters and that all the local grocery stores were unionized and had waiting lists to get rehired. The Mrs had not looked for a job in 20-ish years. I ended up getting one through the bodyshop/agency that the Mr was working at.

That city had 3 basic industries: defense, fast food and religion. The defense contractors all wanted current top secret clearances (I had bad debt at that time) and the religious employers all wanted "testimonies of faith" (think SF-86 but aimed at religious beliefs, and required 10+ years of church attendance with names & numbers of the reverend/priest/etc to vouch for you).