Have you ever seen a friend spend months unemployed?
Perhaps they seem a bit too comfortable to your liking, because maybe they are not panicking, what with their team, their team, their team, and walking leisurely, and meeting friends for dinner.
I certainly felt no chill about their coldness. I say this with love, you: panic.
But now, as a suddenly fired designer/graphic novelist, I get it. They - we - are truly confused. .
PSSST: They're faking it. Your job-seeking friends are deeply perceptive labor users who can smell desperation a mile away. They need to be in a confident vacuum. They need to act cold, to feel cold, to transmit cold to the job-givers. Chill gets the job. The habit of feeling cold. Everything is fine. Panic is your enemy. Push it down.
Now I'm five months unemployed, and this is what I wish someone explained to me:
1. You will find a job. You just will. If you're halfway intelligent with decent social skills, who has successfully held professional jobs in the past, someone will hire you.
Whether it's a step up or down in salary/seniority, eh, who knows. But you will get back on track, and this will be a bright spot in your overall career plan. Listen to your friends when they tell you it will happen, even though you have serious doubts with their blind faith. They're right, and your vision as a former creative director shaking a tin box for honorary nicknames at the train station is wrong. I know everything feels scary and out of control, but what's imperative is that you have to trust the process.
Specifically, here's how it will go down: You'll start this journey, confident in your skills and successful track record, with a new resume and investment portfolio. Somehow, in a crude way, a lot of companies won't want to hire you. And I mean a lot. (Finally, a will.) You'll receive 10, 20, 30 rejection emails for every warm interview request. For reasons you'll never know. You won't get it when you're pretty sure it's a match made in Heaven and you've connected with the hiring manager through truly criminal podcasts. You'll move on to the next phase when you're pretty sure you're not a fit and flounder in the interview. The process will beat you down until you suggest that you're not responsible. It's very personal, except it's not. You won't get it. Ride the waves. Go with the Yeses. Stay in the process.
2. The further you go in your career, the more new roles you'll lose. If you're 20 years old, count on at least six months. I don't make the rules. I've just entered the job market just won an award for excellence in my department, thank you they. I really believed in a very new flip. Breathe. In short, looking for a new gig is almost certainly going to take longer than you anticipate and much longer than you're comfortable with.
3. As in relationships, the speed at which you're matched with your new job is not directly related to your value as a candidate. (Even as I write this, I'm 82% believing in myself, while 18% I'm quietly convinced I couldn't defend.) But look. Did your high school sweetheart marry in perfect order? No. Lucky. You're almost guaranteed not to get all the rejection you're facing, every day with the people we really value your applications. Unfortunately, Google's email. But everyone's just another timeline, waiting their turn, their time. Your job right now, quite literally, is to keep plugging away until you don't have to anymore.
4. Don't get too wrapped up in what job market, what time of year. Who cares, you know. This is the market you're in. Get down, do what you need to do. The Viking link chats I've had with unemployed peepers about games like the Sahara Desert out there! felt completely useless and belly-aching. Remember that you don't need the whole anthropology of the job; you need one.
5. Similarly, spend 0 time making your age or career stage. Biases are definitely real, but you can't change these things about yourself so just dig until you find someone who's buying what you're selling (then work to change perceptions from within the system). And remember, they're not rejecting you, because they don't know you. They're rejecting your candidate for a certain role based on expectations and reasons you'll never be privy to, so don't obsess. They want an octagonal prism and you have 9. or put it in a deep literal quote on my Instagram stories right now, we can stop seeing ourselves through people who never really see us.
6. Don't get excited about a job until you pass the HR screening. Don't outline your work, don't make an office drive, don't share the list with all your friends. . I was very excited about a role, you already had this in the bag, you were pretty sure it was a done deal and then the recruiters were meh meh. Or maybe hypothetically, in one case, a recruiter might say, I'm really not sure the HR sees it here, I don't think this is a fit. (First of all, how dare you; second, wait, do I sound like real-time feedback instead of being mysteriously ghosted? I think maybe I do! Feeling, not getting a job offer, usually not a second interview. Please waste less energy than I've been sucked into the enthusiasm of HR.
7. If you have an issue with the unemployment system, like hypothetically, you'll get a scary red check mark next to your online request notifying you that there's a representation issue. Although the US Gen-Pop can't reach a person there, they have a secret bat phone and can quickly arrange everything for you. Literally, who knows.
8. Nod and smile at meaningful friends who say, Hopefully this can be a time of rest for you and really check your passion. Few of us have that luxury. I don't work for fun here, Sharon. Yes, I've had some slow days, but I didn't feel Rest Rest for a second of unemployment, nor did I see it as an opportunity to reflect on what nourishes my soul. Because I'm too worried about feeding my child. This leads me to...
9. Creative energy may not flow during this time for you. That's okay. Maybe you're imagining learning Mandarin, searching for war entertainment in your inner revolution, perfecting watercolor landscapes, very effectively and using online time very well. That's for me I don't know, Sabbatical vibes? Unemployment is a stress not known in sight and for me that doesn't encourage any hobbies other than desperation and hard to digest 3-hour related. Productivity can go screw. Like early covid when we had too much time and theoretically could have self-taught us, but instead, watch Anh's great show for 6 hours a day and not change our underwear, body and brain in fight or flight mode. Be good to them. .
10. Job scams. Don't know if this is a thing but I've met a few of them. If a recruiter or employer is trying to move too fast, if they're trying to break an interview over the phone with an old regular phone with an online form or something weird if they're not listening to you or contradicting yourself for a while, Google, run it by your skeptical friends, and then maybe Ghost. Even if they represent Microsoft. I don't understand what their angle is (a week's work and no pay? Your personal information?
11. Finally, as brutal as this process is for you, it's also really tough on your support network (and I certainly hope you have a good one). My firing happened pretty early in a dating relationship, maybe a little earlier than I wanted him to see me about my luck. He's very supportive and great, and I know he and others of mine are really hard, weighing the mental cost of a job trip. Their job isn't easy: a PEP talk can quickly boost pity; Sending a job list can easily become a patronage. Your needs as an unemployed person change from minute to minute, making you a scary moving target for support. When you can, communicate your needs clearly and be mindful of how much mud inside you've inadvertently placed on the worried shoulders, their meaningful.
Good luck out there! Remember there's a system of weird turns and I don't understand it, but I know you're coming.