While on unemployment, people are often required to spread their search across hundreds of companies. After being laid off, I was unemployed for several months

While on unemployment, people are often required to spread their search across hundreds of companies. After being laid off, I was unemployed for several months and was required to submit at least 3 applications a week. On the face, that doesn't sound like many, and for some fields it probably isn't heard. But if you're in a specialized field, even finding 3 open positions to apply for becomes a full-time job. And each of those openings tended to require many hours of specialized work. Some of that time was moving a nicely developed resume into their proprietary applicant webpage (urgh!!!). There was one job that actually required me to develop a dummy website. Because I knew there were weeks when I wouldn't even be able to find 3 openings, when I found more than 3 I would intentionally wait until the following week to apply to the more promising openings. The idea being that I could do the minimum work on the required 3 applications, then spend the rest of the week diligently working on the more promising openings, and submit it first thing the following week. Then there are the weeks that I couldn't even find 3 in my field and didn't have any left over from the previous week. For those I applied to complete throw-away positions. I felt sorry for whatever sap had to review my application. All the while, I wish I had been able to focus on a handful of desirable positions and personal retraining. Instead, I spent months doing B.S. work just to be able to pay the mortgage until I was able to get a job, which ended up coming through a personal connection and would never have shown up on the radar that the unemployment office required me to use!