Fortunately for me, I didn't walk away from my last gig empty handed, and so have been afforded a bit of time to figure out what's next.<p>As others have said, hiring really slows down in Nov and Dec. You have quarter end, the year's budget is running low, project priorities are being shifted with anticipation of the new year, etc.,. Having been on the hiring end many times over the last several years, I know that higher ups often push you to fill a position - but just as soon as you settle on a candidate during this time of year, they almost always pump the brakes on actually hiring until new year.<p>Knowing this, I'd initially planned no not looking for a new gig until 2023, but once folks hear your back on the market, you basically can't avoid people trying to play matchmaker for your next job (which is a good problem to have, I suppose).<p>Not wanting to pass up a potential opportunity, I accepted a few interview requests that came about from my personal network in Nov. After going through 2-3 rounds of ultimately fruitless interviews with 3 different companies since mid-Nov, I've decided to just wait and enjoy the downtime. Each company I interviewed with essentially signaled "you're perfect for our needs and will be moving quickly with you" during the interview process, then would go radio silent - only to have them follow up a couple weeks later with "some of our internal needs have changed with the end of year approaching, but we'll be in touch".<p>So I figured for my sanity and so that I could enjoy a little bit of my funemployment, that I'd just be upfront with them and set some boundaries. Now, I've basically just been communicating "I appreciate your interest, but this is a bad time of year for bringing on new hires when considering year's end, so let's plan on touching base in January". We will see if this works out in my benefit or not - but if they can't respect that, and aren't capable of acknowledging the reality of things, I'd probably not want to work with them anyways.