Boyfriend making it about him

Why would you need meals cooked and support while you’re job hunting? 🤷‍♀️

It's hard to say without knowing him. Either

A) he's been inspired by your job search, and has decided it would be good to have a fresh start just like you, perhaps not wanting to be outdone; or

B) he's feeling neglected because all your attention is going on the jobs rather than on him, and he's tired of hearing about it, so he has staged his own time-consuming job hunt to give you a taste of your own medicine (as he sees it)

Well if he's going to start applying for jobs you mention, OP, I'd be taking a few swift steps backwards for now while you process this behaviour.
When he asks you to read his CV (FFS) you are too busy with your own. You can't see him right now because busy. And stressed. You don't need to give (and he doesn't deserve) any more explanation than this, so don't fall over yourself apologising or trying to justify yourself.
You need to prioritise your own health and wellbeing (and career!) for the time being, and if this is who he is, maybe permanently, but that's a problem for down the line.
And definitely don't tell him about any other jobs you're applying for!

Perhaps he hadn’t mentioned wanting a new job before now (although the post doesn’t explicitly say that). But it’s a stretch to assume that he doesn’t actually want a new job and is applying for new jobs to compete/ steal focus. It just doesn’t ring true to me. It’s hard work applying for a new job and a lot to put yourself through.

Yes of course. But it seems to me there is little reason to believe he doesn’t want a new change of job. Surely it’s a lot is hassle to apply for new jobs otherwise.

No, but he likes his current job and has no reason whatsoever to be looking for another. It didn't even occur to him to start job hunting until the OP had to do it, and now he's making sure he's doing it bigger and better than she is.

I'd bet my hat that if the OP was looking for another car, he'd suddenly find a reason to do the same thing.

In the past when I've seen others applying for new jobs I did feel that maybe I was "stuck in a rut" and I'd start looking at vacancies. I wasn't competing with my partner about it though, which I do think is unreasonable.

Has he been to "eleven-erife"?!

This reminds me of someone I knew years ago who was very competitive in a (non-resident, several year long) relationship. The woman's teenager bought her a small bunch of flowers, three days later he turned up with an enormous fancy bunch. The teenager had an injury, he hurt his ankle. Teenager was coming up to exams, he had something very stressful at work he suddenly needed to talk about all the time.

The relationship was not like this initially and the child got on well with him. After the above behaviour became more pronounced the romance fizzled out.

It’s insensitive of him, given that you are getting stressed about it and really do need a new job, whereas he has taken a fancy to wanting a new job. Maybe he feels threatened about your future success and achievements.
Wow to considering applying to a job you have or will apply for. You don’t need that kind of competition, you would ideally like him to give you the support you require, keep you going and celebrate the little wins involved in job hunting.

But he IS unreasonable if he is doing it for any reason other than 'he wants a new job'. Surely? That's the very essence of it being unreasonable.

You literally asked if he should be able to do his own job search right now in your post. So that is why I understood that to be what you were asking.

@PinkLipsticks I know exactly how this feels. I had a similar incident last year when I was selling my house (my DCs' childhood home and somewhere I'd lived for nearly 20 years) and my DP turned it back onto himself and how upset he was that I wasn't moving in with him, how I hadn't considered him in my choice of house (I absolutely had considered him, along with my 3 DCs and myself) and how he didn't want to continue a long distance relationship as now it would take him 28 minutes instead of 23 to get to my house. I bent over backwards to try and placate him while also grieving the loss of my home and my nuclear family as 2 of my DCs also moved out at the time. In the end it was too much and we split up.

After a couple of months we talked about it and he was able to see that the impact of my move on our relationship was negligible and that he'd been catastrophising as he felt out of control of the changes going on. Is your boyfriend generally anxious, is he hoping for your relationship to change in some way and is fearful that your job hunt is somehow going to leave him behind? Could he be worried that you're going to outearn him and make him feel emasculated? None of those things excuse his weird behaviour, but may go some way to explaining it.

I did not misunderstand that the OP interprets that her bf is vying for attention and indulging in competitive stress. But my view is that he’s not unreasonable to look for a new job at the same time as she is looking. No-one has the monopoly on applying for a job.

that's a very simplistic and charitable (to the boyfriend) interpretation of the thread. My reading would be that the OP wants to know why her boyfriend has to indulge in 'competitive stress' in the same way that some men can't bear for their partner to be ill without having to declare their own much worse version of man-flu.

Of course in isolation there is nothing wrong with both partners looking for new jobs at the same time, but the OP's boyfriend is taking any focus from the OP and putting it firmly onto himself, to the extent he even mentioned applying for the same job! That is not normal behaviour for a well-adjusted person.

My reading is the point of the thread is whether it is unreasonable for bf to look for a job while OP is looking for a job. What is your reading of it?

This is not the point of the thread

I don’t think he’d be looking for a new job unless he wanted a change himself. As you run two separate homes presumably your finances are fairly separate so I don’t see why it’s an issue if you both apply for new jobs at the same time.

I can't really see that he's done anything wrong, really.

I would tell him that it's a bit insensitive to keep bringing up his job search at the moment, as you are stressed by your own. When you have secured a new job you will be able to support him.

I thought you were over at his home visiting him if he is cooking dinner for you both ?

I would take this as a huge red flag. If you think he’s potentially someone you want to keep in your life, I’d ascertain if he does this regularly. Say you’ve got a tummy bug.. does he suddenly have one?
if you get flu.. has he suddenly got flu.

if he’s mirroring you instead of supporting you.. eh. Not good.