Tim Madden is an Executive Coach and former Headhunter. Founder of Executive Career Upgrades, he's on a mission to help accelerate careers.
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If you’re anything like the average person, filling in applications and attending interviews isn’t your idea of fun. The job search is tough at the best of times, and after a few weeks and multiple rejection emails, many of us reach the point where it feels like we’ll never find the position we want. This is what we’re calling the “job search blues”—the feelings of despair that hit at a certain point in the process. Nobody is immune; in fact, higher-level job seekers like executives and directors often feel them harder than anyone else due to the pressure they face and the attachment they have to their careers.
Plus, it doesn’t exactly help that everywhere you go and everywhere in the press, people are reporting on how great the labor market is performing right now. So, what exactly can you expect from the job search blues, and how can you combat them once and for all?
Are the job search blues real?
Tell a friend or relative that you have the job search blues, and you might be met with a raised eyebrow or rolling eyes. To those who aren’t currently seeking jobs and have forgotten how it felt to be uncertain of their careers, it’s easy to dismiss anyone feeling down as overly dramatic or impatient. Yet the job search blues are very much a real phenomenon, and they makes a lot of sense.
The average job search takes around five months. You might think that executives fare better due to their extensive resumes and enviable networks, but often, the opposite is true: Their specialization means they need to wait for a niche position and the right cultural fit.
Assuming you’re following the standard advice of treating your job hunt as a full-time job and submitting applications most working days, chances are you’ve been ignored or rejected hundreds of times—that would have a negative impact on almost anyone’s mental health. Then there’s the uncertainty about the future and whether you’ll be able to provide for your family, especially with the potential of a recession looming. Plus, if you’ve climbed to a good position in your career, there’s a high chance that your identity and self-esteem depend on your job status.
In some cases, this can go from “the blues” to a full-blown mental health condition. There’s an established connection between depression and unemployment, and anyone can suffer. So, if you're feeling bad, it’s important to do something about it before those feelings can develop.
How to ease the job search blues.
By now, we’ve established that the job search blues are completely valid and nobody is immune from them, no matter whether they’re a new graduate or an experienced business leader. Hopefully, that helps you understand that what you’re experiencing is normal and that you’re entitled to feel the way you do. But even more important than comprehension is having the strategies needed to keep your blues in check.
These tips should help.
Use the job search as an opportunity to reflect.
One big reason for negative feelings during the job search is tunnel vision for the end goal. If this is the case, you're going to be feeling bad about yourself for as long as you aren't achieving your primary goal. But what if you reframed your job search as an opportunity to reflect on what you’ve liked and disliked about your career so far and what direction you want to go in from here?
Once you put some thought into it, you may realize that you want a career switch or to move to a slightly different industry. Your job search is a unique window of opportunity to make some out-of-the-box applications and see what happens.
If you have the resources, you may even want to work with a career coach to get an outside perspective on your ambitions.
Prepare for rejection.
Optimism is great, but statistically, that interview you just landed is not likely to end in a job offer. Instead of getting your hopes up and then suffering a confidence knock, expect the worst and have a plan for rejection.
What will you do to treat yourself when you get bad news? Will you write them an email to ask for feedback? What other opportunities are you excited to pursue that this role wouldn't have offered?
Give yourself a break (literally).
During the job search, it’s important to keep the momentum going by firing out applications consistently. But let’s face it—if you were enough of a go-getter to land an executive job or similar the first time around, then you’re probably not sitting around slacking when it comes to this job search. Instead of disciplining yourself more, you might need to give yourself a break.
Writing cover letters and taking part in the occasional interview may seem easier than holding a full-time job with responsibility, but psychologically, uncertainty and anxiety can build up when there’s no “end of the working day” or time to switch off. Make sure you take care of yourself by having regular breaks, eating well, going outside in nature and getting plenty of sleep.
Beat those blues.
No matter how mentally tough you are, or how high a level you’ve achieved in your career up to now, anyone can doubt themselves during a job search—it would almost be strange if you didn’t feel sad, worried or stressed at all during the process.
The job search blues are real, but you don’t need to let them get you down. Take a break and treat yourself the next time you’re feeling bad mentally, and try to use this period as a chance to point your career in the right direction.
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