Salt Lake City / New York: A 30-year-old chemical engineering PhD from Princeton University has applied for more than 2,300 jobs over two years without landing a permanent position, according to a Wall Street Journal report published this week that has since drawn wide attention online.
Who he is
Dr. Jack Weis (some outlets spell the surname Weiss) is a native of Salt Lake City, Utah, and is currently living in his childhood home with his parents. He graduated summa cum laude from Rice University and entered the PhD program at Princeton in 2018, where he researched chemical principles and the interactions between molecules. He earned his doctorate in 2024.
His research on ice formation was cited by the Nobel Committee when it announced the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, as an example of how machine learning is being used in scientific research.
The job search
Dr. Weis first applied for research roles at pharmaceutical companies and for prestigious postdoctoral positions at national laboratories. Most applications went unanswered, with only occasional rejections. He then widened his search beyond his field and region, including corporate science jobs and software engineering positions, but was rarely invited to interview.
He also reached out to former Princeton and Rice classmates and contacts for help. The advice he received mostly amounted to checking company job pages again. His mother reviewed his applications to see whether anything might be putting employers off. She reportedly found them well written, with nothing significant to fix.
Along the way, he picked up temporary contract work training AI systems, reportedly at $70 an hour. According to secondary reports, the project ended when he and about 800 other gig workers were dropped through a mass Slack message.
A hiring freeze for graduates
Economists describe the current market as “low-hire, low-fire.” People who have jobs are not leaving them, and employers are cutting back on recruitment, which shuts out newcomers, recent graduates and the long-term unemployed even though headline unemployment stays low. Analysts also point to AI-driven screening and automation as barriers for applicants.
The Urdu report cites labor data showing the share of Americans out of work for 27 weeks or longer reached nearly a decade high this summer, excluding the Covid-19 period. It also says unemployment among university graduates has overtaken that of non-graduates in some figures. It quotes New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data, as saying unemployment among highly educated New Yorkers aged 22 to 27 stood at 7.3 percent as of March 2026.
Online reaction
Reaction on social media has been divided. Some users blamed immigration policies such as the H-1B visa program for sidelining American talent. Others pointed to a reported 1.2 percent unemployment rate among chemical engineering PhDs and suggested practical fixes, such as updating his LinkedIn profile.
One commentator cautioned that his case, which combines top credentials with an unusually high number of applications, should not be read as proof that all PhD graduates face the same outcome.