How to Job Hunt (When You’re Already Exhausted) – Harvard Business Review

When youre already worn out from working full time, caring for family, and managing this new way of Covid being, its hard to muster up the energy to jump into a job hunt or consider changing careers. Incorporating these five coaching and change management principles into your job search will help you stay motivated throughout what can feel like a grueling process even at the best of times. First, give some thought to why you actually want a new job, and why you want it now. Next, use visualization techniques when exhaustion or false narratives take over. Then, create a plan and follow it methodically. Next, let go of the things you cant control. Finally, prepare for the inevitable emotional ups and downs.

When Fred, a client of mine, realized he wasnt feeling fulfilled in his job, he wanted to find something more meaningful. So he started a job search. Within days, he was interviewing multiple times a week for multiple companies, and each interview required hours of preparation while he was also spearheading major projects at his full-time job. As his workload became more frenetic, he said many times, This is exhausting, and at times thought he would give up for a while if the roles he was interviewing for didnt come through.

Freds exhaustion is understandable. When youre already worn out from working full time, caring for family, and managing this new way of Covid being, its hard to muster up the energy to jump into a job hunt or consider changing careers. Incorporating the following five coaching and change management principles into your job search will help you stay motivated throughout what can feel like a grueling process even at the best of times.

Understanding why you want a new job will help you focus on the end goal. It will allow you to enter the search from a place of exploration and empowerment, which will motivate you find space for job hunting instead of filling that space with paralyzing anger or fear. Defining why now? will call you to action to take that first step.

Sit and close your eyes. Visualize a time when you were excited about a new job or happy in your current one. What feelings do the images conjure up for you? What parts of the images excite you? Do you like the people? The work? Then think about your job today. Do you have different feelings? What dont you have in your current job that you wish you did?

Finally, visualize how youll feel when you find your dream job. Embrace that energy, excitement, and engagement and feel it through your entire body. What parts of the new job will make you feel this way? Using visualization to determine whats important to you and embracing the feeling that comes from the imagery will help you power through the arduous job-hunting process if there is disappointment or its taking longer than you anticipated. Use this technique when exhaustion or false narratives take over.

Fear of the unknown, of how much time the process will take, or of not knowing what you want to do will stop you from gaining momentum in your job search. But if you create a plan first and follow it methodically, youll glean energy from accomplishing every step.

First, determine how much time youre willing and able to dedicate to the job-hunting process and commit to that amount of time each day or week. Block off that time as well as 15 minutes twice a day to check personal email and LinkedIn to respond to recruiters or schedule interviews. If you can swing it, consider incorporating a bit of extra time every day to do something you love right before sitting down to job hunt, such as exercising, dancing, standing with arms akimbo (Wonder Woman stance), or being with family. This will energize you, put your mind in a peaceful and happy space, and prime it for productivity.

Next, create an activity schedule. What will you do and when? Do you need to prepare your resume, update your LinkedIn profile, or develop stories around your experience to tell during interviews? How much time will you spend applying online? Be clear on what youll do each day you blocked off time.

Finally, determine who youll need support from when job hunting. Do you need to ask a significant other to take more responsibility in the household so you can use that time to job hunt? Do you need to set boundaries for the time youll dedicate to the search and not let anyone (or anything) interrupt you?

All companies recruiting processes are different and will take various amounts of time. Some companies have a maximum of four interviewers whereas others may have 10 interviews, a technical test, and reference checks. Some companies take 30 or 60 days to hire; some take 90 days or longer. Roles, leaders, or budgets can change after a job is posted or after youve interviewed, leaving you to wonder, what happened?

You cant control any of that. You also cant control whether youre a culture fit, whether a recruiter disappears and ghosts you, whether there are any jobs open in your chosen field at a particular time, or how many jobs youll need to apply to before you find the perfect one. Focusing on all of these things will sap your energy and make you not want to even start a job hunt.

But if you focus on what you can control, youll increase your positive energy and build momentum. Here are a few things to spend your energy on instead of the factors that are out of your hands:

Mental preparation is just as important as preparing your resume. The job-hunting process is emotional and comes with plenty of ups (great interviews) and downs (losing a job to another candidate). Even landing a new job may lead to stress over setting your current team members up for success, offboarding, and then onboarding in a new company. Rejection after a battery of interviews may make you feel like you wasted a lot of time. But what if you changed that perspective to finding success in each failure? Every interview, every meeting, is practice for the right job. When youre rejected from a job you really want, it feels like a lost opportunity. But what if you changed the narrative in your brain to genuinely believe it wasnt the right opportunity?

Prepare how youll work through rejection in advance. For example, give yourself a maximum of one day to mourn the loss, determine what you learned from the experience, then own that it wasnt the right role for you. Setting boundaries will stop the spiral over an opportunity that wasnt right for you anyway.

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The most important aspect of job hunting is to be compassionate with yourself and change your thought process from Im not doing enough to Im doing the best I can. When Fred felt like his work, family, and other commitments were being short-changed as a result of the time he dedicated to his job search, he reminded himself that the investment in finding the right job would ultimately enrich all aspects of his life and that a more rewarding environment would curb some of his fatigue. He was right his energy and happiness multiplied exponentially when he landed his dream job.

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How to Job Hunt (When You're Already Exhausted) - Harvard Business Review