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In the dim morning light, Tim Millard sat up in bed and checked his phone. "It's 12:38 in the morning, and I just got an email about one of my job applications," he said. He opened his inbox. "Ah! Rejected, yet again." The audience murmured sympathetically, then erupted with laughter as Millard described the "three-step formula" of a generic rejection email. "Step one: Thank the applicant for applying, and maybe offer some generic praise about their skills or their experience. Step two is the kill line: Tell them that they didn't get the job after careful consideration. And then step three, the blowoff. You tell the person, 'Go to our careers page. Join our talent pool. Go outside and scream into the void, because that's probably just as good.'" After months of unemployment, Millard, 45, was fed up with the "demoralizing, dehumanizing and depressing" job search process, he tells CNBC Make It. So he decided to write a one-man show about it. Why he's sharing his story Millard worked as a multimedia content producer for an Atlanta-based consumer research and review platform for 6 years before he was laid off in July 2025. At first, Millard says he felt optimistic about his job prospects. "I thought, 'I'm talented. I have great marketable skills. I'm going to find a job, no problem,'" he recalls. "After a month or two, I started thinking to myself, 'Uh-oh, this might be a longer journey than I expected.'" Millard is far from alone. Right now, 27% of unemployed Americans, or nearly 2 million people, have been searching for work for over 6 months, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Many jobless workers have struggled to find new employment amid the "low-fire, low-hire job market." Since his layoff, Millard estimates that he's sent out at least 300 job applications while piecing together freelance work to "keep a roof over my head, pay my bills, and make sure there's food in my cat's dish," he says. In November 2025, a longtime friend suggested that Millard channel his job search woes into a stand-up show for the Atlanta Fringe Festival, an annual performing arts festival that showcases live theater, comedy, dance and storytelling. "He told me that he thought people would find it funny, relatable, and honest," Millard says. Millard wasn't initially keen on the idea. That month, the U.S. unemployment rate had reached 4.6%, its highest level in four years, so he wasn't sure whether anyone would care about his individual situation. He also worried that speaking publicly about his job search struggles could make him "unhireable" for certain employers. At the same time, he says, "another part of me said, 'Tim, this is your chance to say what you want to say. So why not do it?'" Leaning into 'human connections' In January 2026, Millard submitted a rough outline of his show to festival organizers. A few weeks later, he got in. Millard's first thought was "I did it!" he says. His second was "Crap! Now I have to write the show." While still spending most of his time applying to jobs, Millard wrote a series of vignettes reflecting different aspects of the process. "One day I would write about what it felt like having to go to the Georgia Department of Labor office. Another day, I would write about what it felt like to have expenses pile up while you're still trying to find a job." On May 28, he performed his show, titled "After Careful Consideration," for a crowd of about 25 audience members at the festival. Opening night for the show went "better than I ever could have imagined," he says. Looking out into the audience, "I no longer felt any sense of hesitation or reservation about talking about my struggles," he says. "I didn't ask to be put in this situation, but I'm in this situation, and it's time for me to make the best of it and have a little fun while doing it." According to Millard, one of the most rewarding aspects of the show, which he performed five times, was hearing from people who related to his story. "I've had so many people come up to me who have told me, 'I'm going through this as well,' or they tell me, 'My husband or my wife or my significant other is in the same situation,'" he says. Many of them felt that they couldn't publicly talk about their struggles due to shame, "so in a way, I feel that I'm helping them tell their story," too, Millard says. "Even after I find a job, I'm still going to talk about this, because I don't think enough people are talking about the human toll of unemployment," he says. "If my own story helps someone else deal with unemployment, then to me, it's worth it. And even if it doesn't help anyone else, I'm still going to talk about it." As his job search continues, Millard is focused on building "human connections," rather than sending applications "into the void." He's also leaning into creative approaches: a month ago, he set up a folding table near a popular Atlanta walking path and handed out free water bottles with copies of his resume. "I put a sign on the table: 'You need water. I need a job. Let's help each other out,'" he says. "I think it might open up more doors than applying online could ever do."
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