I see no problem in either of these images.  They both appear correct.  Lenses are not 100% sharp to begin with and on cheaper lenses it is not atypical for the resolution of the camera to outpace the resolution of the lens, particularly on entry level and kit lenses like the two you are using.

This is even further compounded by using high aperture on a crop body camera.  The smaller point you try to focus light on, the more of an issue diffraction becomes when shining the light through a small hole.  The smaller the hole, the more impact diffraction has and this reduces what level of quality is possible to capture.  Try shooting at or above f/8 or so and diffraction limiting shouldn't be a problem.  You might be able to go a bit higher than that based on your resolution, but I didn't do the calculations to figure out exactly when it is a problem.  (There are calculators online if you want to check exactly when it should theoretically start being an issue.)

The first one certainly has a shallow depth of field, but it appears as sharp as expected for your choice of aperture and lens.  Your unsharp masked version seems over-sharpened.  It over-exaggerates the edges and makes things "jump out" more, but is unnaturally so.

Nikon D3000 Blurry Pictures. Focus Issue?
I applied for a job a year ago, and things didn't pan out then and I didn't hear back.  

I'd like to resubmit my application as the job has been reposted and my skillset has become broader, but Careers doesn't let me send an application again, it just says "You applied for this position on {date last year}.  Good luck!" with no "apply now" button.

In my Messages section, I can view the application but there's no way to withdraw the application or anything, and I can't even post a comment to it as I have a message saying "You must wait until the employer responds to your application."  It's been a year; I don't think they are going to respond to the old application after so long, but I'm left with no way to resubmit my information to them.

It seems counter-intuitive and unlike other job sites that you basically get only one chance to apply to a job, even if said job gets reposted at a later date.  There should either be a way to resubmit an application, withdraw an application, or the system should allow reapplying after some arbitrary amount of time has passed so you aren't left seeing a job that you're a good fit for this time around but with no way to apply for it since you already applied once before.
