Yes, he's terrible at writing resumes but the people tearing into that are clueless just-world wankers missing the forest for the trees. Ageism is a real issue

Yes, he's terrible at writing resumes but the people tearing into that are clueless just-world wankers missing the forest for the trees. Ageism is a real issue that a lot of us will face. For most, it'll be milder than for him: a gradual loss of status after 40 due not to declining ability but the crassness of business culture. It's not inexorable, and some of us will outrun the bear (or at least the other guy) but the average trend is negative. As a person with cyclothymia (the mildest of the bipolar spectrum disorders) I would guess that he's clinically depressed, and that's probably hurting him more than his age. (Most of the middle age loss of "fluid intelligence" is undiagnosed depression. People of normal health don't begin declining, cognitively, until about 70 and some never do.) He feels a need to justify things in his past ("Reason for leaving") when he has reasonable job tenures. His writing is less than competent in organization. The self-pity is obvious. Some depression is completely endogenous and other varieties come from negative contexts (like mid-life un- or underemployment) and can be even harder to get out of. People can be assholes and it can really feel like they're kicking you when you're down, when in fact they're just being morally lazy and weak (i.e. people) but not malevolent in any targeted or personal way. It's easy to take the haughty libertarian view and say, "He should spend $350 and have his resume looked at by a professional." Okay, but he probably doesn't have the money, because he doesn't have a job. "He needs professional help." Probably true (again, I think he's clinically depressed, and who wouldn't be as an unemployed 55-year-old programmer?) but see above. The truth is that he's a capable person who's been fucked over, and while most of us will not be as badly fucked over or as early in our careers, we should be angry.