A guide to maintaining balance during a stressful time in your career
Whether you are currently working full-time and ready for a change, or looking for a job is your full-time job, the job search process can be incredibly stressful, time-consuming, and a monotonous. There always seems to be one more job to apply to, or one more cover letter to write. Not like it matters, because you never hear back anyway…
So how do you keep your sanity? Employ these tips to maintain balance during your job search:
Treat your job search like a “job” — arrive and leave on-time, set aside specific hours for your job search, and stick with them.
· If you are a full-time job seeker, that may be 3 ½ hours in the morning, lunch break, then 3 ½ hours in the afternoon.
· If you currently work full-time, that may be 1 hour in the morning or at night. It is incredible what you can achieve when you are organized and have a deadline.
Stay Focused — While it is important to be open to different types of opportunities, exploring every job posted can be a huge waste of time. To help you stay on target, try this:
· Take two small post-it notes and attach them to your computer screen.
· On one, list your target job titles, and the other, target industries.
· As you are scrolling through job boards, if a post catches your eye that is not on both these lists, give yourself 30 seconds and ask: “Is this industry/ title interesting enough for me to rewrite the post-it, adding this topic?”
· If yes, then do it and apply. If not, move on.
Maintain Your Confidence — Hiring Managers don’t hire experience, they hire people. And people who feel good about themselves appear more confident, capable, and driven than their disgruntled peers.
· If you are in a full-time job search mode, don’t spend the day in your PJs — get dressed and sit at your home computer like you would an office. Make time to get social interaction during the day (go out for lunch/ coffee, go to the gym, etc.), and remember how important fresh air is.
· If you have a full-time job, remember to maintain your recreational activities — a lot of folks will skip out on the gym or their friends because they need to “buckle down” on their search. Most likely, if you are in a job search you are unhappy in your job — staying happy in other parts of your life is vital.
Best of luck on your search!
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Savvy Hires is a recruitment Consulting Firm that addresses Company and Candidate recruitment solutions. We work with companies to build out awesome campus recruitment/ intern programs, create nifty recruitment processes, and help candidates navigate the job search process.
Originally published at medium.com