Intro

You may experience a range of feelings throughout your job search. It can be exciting, draining, and infuriating—all perhaps throughout a single week.

You spend hours of your time preparing for and participating in what seems like endless rounds of interviews only to be rejected after the final round or, even worse, ghosted by the recruiter or hiring manager.

Searching for a job is a full-time job itself and it can be difficult to stop or pause without feeling like you’re not doing your best. The burnout that comes with preparing, applying, waiting, interviewing (if you’re lucky in this market), and repeating the process is no joke.

Feeling burnt out is normal, being nice to yourself about it is the hard part. Let’s chat about some things that I do that have helped me reduce my self-judgment and increase my confidence in my recent search.

TL;DR of this post

Structure

I know that I feel my best when I have a bit of structure in my life. This took years of trial and error and, being an “all-in” kind of person, I overdid it at first. I created a strict structure of when I would do certain things like walk the dog, eat meals, workout, etc. The issue with my approach was that I didn’t allow myself any room for error.

The type of structure that you create should work for you, and you should also give yourself room for error. Here are a few things I try to do when I’m searching for a job.

Scheduling

Setting aside certain times each day or week to look for jobs helps ensure you aren’t overwhelming yourself. The emotional toll that a lack of communication, or rejection throughout the process is a lot to handle, especially if it’s often.

You might spend a couple of hours each day working on your resume or portfolio (if applicable) or browsing job boards until you see a role that catches your eye.

It’s easy to get tunnel vision when you’re on a roll while applying, so be sure to take breaks and maybe go outside unless you have a phobia of the sun.

Tracking Applications

I’ve tracked my application process in the past and I’m not 100% sure how I feel about it. Am I doing it now? No. Will I do it in the future? Maybe.

A pro of this approach is that you can see your performance over time. Was there a time when you were getting more interviews? If so, what were you doing differently then? While this idea makes it a lot easier to see if you’ve already applied for a role than searching through your inbox (guilty), it can easily become a lot of extra work.

Depending on the level of detail, you could be updating it each time any application moves to the next step or stops in its tracks. It’s also not the most motivating artifact to update, particularly if you’re having a tough time landing calls or interviews.

Reframing

Compared to my current experience in the job search, my past searches felt like a breeze. My current search makes me feel like I’d rather watch Madame Web again (the first time was horrible enough) than be rejected for another job.

The easy experiences I had in previous job searches gave me a false sense of how hard it can actually be. This time, in the early stages, I viewed each role I interviewed for as a potential offer and should have been more cautiously optimistic rather than flat-out optimistic.

Even when the interviews went great, each rejection, no matter the reason, was like a punch in the gut from a superhero in that terrible movie.

It wasn’t a moment where “it clicked.” But I go into interviews being cautiously optimistic. If I get to the interview phase with a company, I still give 100% in the process, but reframing it around what I can learn or have learned during that process that I can use moving forward has helped me introduce things that I might not have on my own.

Thank you

I like writing and sharing my experiences, so thank you for taking the time to read through this. As always, you can find me on LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out with any questions, comments, or feedback as I look to write about relevant topics. Check out some open job postings below!

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