Junior-Cranberry-763's journey

I was laid off in July 2026 after spending two years at my previous company, and I have around eight years of total work experience, with four of those years in customer success and account management. For the past two months, I've been actively applying for new positions and have managed to secure several first-round interviews, but unfortunately, I haven't progressed beyond the second round yet. I've started to notice a concerning trend: most of the roles I'm looking at are offering salaries that are about 40-60% lower than what I was making before. This means I might have to accept a pay cut of at least 40%. I reached out to some friends in recruitment for advice, and they suggested that I should aim for no more than a 5-10% pay cut in my next role unless I'm in a desperate financial situation. However, after seeing how tough the job market is, I'm beginning to feel like that might not be realistic. I'm starting to wonder if I should just take the first offer that comes my way, regardless of the pay cut. Any advice on what to expect in this situation would be greatly appreciated.