<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!--
  lastmod must match the date the page's CONTENT actually changed. Google uses
  it to decide whether a re-crawl is worth its time, so a stale date on a page
  you just changed quietly tells the crawler not to bother.

  Found stale 2026-08-19: this file had not been touched since 2026-08-04, but
  index.html and workforce-reentry.html both changed on 2026-08-18 in 52cece2
  (the Sign Up nav button, a new conversion path on the exact pages the VFW and
  library flyers point at), and help.html changed 2026-08-12 in 36d84b0.

  Update the relevant lastmod in the SAME commit that changes a page here. The
  file's last commit date, via git log with a short date format, is the value
  to use.

  Found stale again 2026-10-12: /tracker (live since 2026-10-08) was never
  added, and the home, help, reentry and veterans dates all trailed their
  pages. tests/jobcycle.test.js now fails if /tracker leaves this file.

  Found stale a third time 2026-10-16: the home page (Free Start hero,
  2026-10-14) and help (Free Start note, 2026-10-15) both trailed. Same day,
  vercel.json began sending X-Robots-Tag noindex for this file, so Search
  Console stops listing it as a page that was crawled and not indexed. Google
  still reads a noindexed sitemap as a sitemap.

  Note for whoever edits this comment next: a double hyphen is illegal inside
  an XML comment and makes the whole sitemap unparseable. Validate after
  editing.
-->
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://careerbackstory.com/</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-10-16</lastmod>
    <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
    <priority>1.0</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://careerbackstory.com/help</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-10-16</lastmod>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.5</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://careerbackstory.com/workforce-reentry</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-10-07</lastmod>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.7</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://careerbackstory.com/veterans</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-10-07</lastmod>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.8</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://careerbackstory.com/tracker</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-10-08</lastmod>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.8</priority>
  </url>
</urlset>
