Post-Fordist modernity is characterized by a shift where young individuals derive their identities from their work (McRobbie, 2016). Weeks (2020) contends that work serves as an ‘ontological reward’ encompassing notions of self-realisation and personal value derived through performance and recognition in the workplace. Engaging with this concept, I will investigate how unemployed young men coped with the coronavirus lockdowns four years ago and how these experiences have shaped their current careers (and lives). Through my ethnography in a small village in Andhra Pradesh, India, I engage with young men who are completing their graduate studies, or preparing for job placement exams, or both. My interlocutors belong to lower-middle-class or working-class families, and as first-generation college graduates, they often perceive a college degree as a gateway to a “secure, government job” – an increasingly elusive prospect in India. The hard work that goes into the preparation for these jobs tests, often spanning years and requiring coaching classes and mock tests, was already an important rite of passage on their journey to adulthood. The stringent lockdown measures, especially the extended closure of schools and colleges in India unlike in other countries, hit these young people doubly hard. This paper conceptualizes the double crisis of coronavirus lockdown experienced by jobseekers amidst the prevailing sense of despair. It attempts to shed light on the everyday struggles related to livelihood and masculinity among the marginalised youth, countering the overarching narrative on Indian youth that tends to overlook issues of class, caste and geographic marginalization. My conceptual focus revolves around what Stahl et al (2021) called ‘possible selves’, which encapsulates individuals’ reflections on their past juxtaposed with the present, characterised by ‘paused’ yet uncertain prospects.