Looking for a job can be one of the most soul-destroying, mood-shattering
things on this planet, and it's made even worse if you're unemployed and looking for a job.
Sometimes it feels hopeless,
it feels pointless, you feel like you're not good enough, or like you're never going to get any job, nevermind one that you actually like!
I know I'm not the only person who feels like this.
Scrolling through pages of vacancies that are:
Part time, when you want Full Time;
Temporary, when you need Permanent;
that are looking for 3rd level education (that doesn't even have to be relevant - why?!), when you're more than qualified with tons of experience but just didn't happen to go to uni...
When I was unemployed this summer, job hunting made me feel like crap more often than not.
This obviously didn't make me want to spend much time looking for a job, whether I desperately needed one or not!
Coming home from Southeast Asia and then spending two weeks in Ibiza with 24-7 Prayer meant that my bank account was looking pretty dire.
As soon as I got home from Ibiza, the job search started, and I was super lucky in that I found a job in a froyo cafe within a week and a half of looking, and started at the beginning of July. David, on the other hand, has been looking solidly for the past 4 months and only recently, literally in the past 2 weeks, has he been successful in finding full time employment!
I'm well aware of the stresses of job hunting, of how dejected and discouraged it can make you feel
but David & I came up with some tips & tricks on how to keep the motivation & productivity alive.
Go to the library.
Get out of the house & down to your local library for an hour or two of solid,
uninterrupted job searching.
It will help keep you focused on looking for a job, mostly because you'll probs feel too awkward to constantly be checking Instagram/New Look/ASOS every 5 minutes in the middle of the library -
I know I did!
I wasn't distracted half as much in the library as I would've been at home. But make sure you bring headphones with you, young children's groups ruin the whole 'quiet library' thing.
Update your C.V
I know what you're thinking. Duuuh, right?!
Obviously, if you're seriously looking for a job your C.V is already completely up to date.
What
I mean is, make sure you have multiple copies, multiple versions of
your C.V for every kind of job you might be applying for.
I have a different C.V for office/administration roles, for cafe work, for retail work.
Brainstorm
for a while about the different kinds of jobs you want to apply for,
and spend some time tweaking your C.V so that it is appropriate for each
role.
Sign up to an agency.
This might not suit everyone, especially if you're looking for a specific career,
& honestly, I haven't done this either.
I genuinely love working in a cafe, so for the meantime I'm content!
David, on the other hand, was itching to get into an office to do admin,
so an agency was perfect for him.
He
put it off for ages, because he was concerned that the only jobs an
agency would try and get for him would be call centre roles, and having been there, done that & wanted to return the tshirt, he definitely didn't want to do that again!
But,
he signed up to Ashton Recruitment, went in for a registration meeting
and within a few days he was being offered interviews!
The agency basically does most of the hard work for you.
All you have to do is tell them what you're looking for, what you definitely are not looking for, send them your C.V and they do the rest.
Obviously, you have to go through the whole interview process but that's a whole different ball game!
Reward Yourself.
I mean, if you're between jobs right now, maybe don't go too crazy,
but if you're feeling particularly stressed/bummed out/rejected after a job search session
then take a breath and reward yourself for getting through it with
a coffee, or some cake, or let's face it, probably both!
It helps to shake off that horrible, dejected feeling of a crap job search.
Remind yourself to let it go after every session, don't carry it with you & don't let it bring you down for the rest of the day.
Be Hopeful.
If it's taking longer than you thought it would to land a job you enjoy, or any job at all,
don't lose hope!
I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, so if it's taking a while to find a job, try & figure out what this means in your life.
For David & I, our faith has been reignited in the last 4 months.
We've started doing bible studies together again, David feels as though he is closer to God than he's been in ages because he has had the time to rediscover Jesus & dive into the Bible.
I believe that it took David so long to find a full time job, (while still working in his part time youth work role), because he wasn't meant to find a job until now.
Don't lose hope!
So don't let the stress and the negativity of job searching get you down!
There are many ways of nailing productive job searching, but
these are the ones that were most effective for David and myself!
What are your tips for a productive job search?
❤
