Burnout
So, I have turned my hunting for a job into a full time job.
The first week I did a brain dump, I read the advice, watched the webinars.
The second week I redid my resume and cover, I updated all the job search sites that let you post your resume. I set up searches on every platform. I bookmarked sites to check every day and every week because they didn’t send out daily alerts. I gathered jobs and started to apply.
The third week, I applied, applied, and applied. I tweaked my resume and cover and caught up on all the jobs that may have been lingering. I set up my tracking spreadsheet. I started to get interviews, I answered practice questions. I thought through scenarios and examples. I applied for more jobs.
I wanted to jump in as quickly as possible, what if I was missing the most perfect opportunity? What if the search takes longer than expected? I can do my self examination as I go. I should just cover these bases right now, because they are there. I was applying to everything that I even had a vague interest in. Doing the recommended research and resume and cover letter customization. Better safe than sorry.
I was doing this about 8 to 10 hours a day. Everyday. I scheduled every minute of an 8 to 10 hour day between searching and applying to jobs, training and webinars, and editing my materials.
I burned out.
I don’t think that many of us, or at least I didn’t, stop to really think and assess the mental and emotional strain that applying for jobs really takes on you.
I hadn’t realized that this was like networking all day every day. I was pitching myself. I was trying to sell some nameless/faceless person at a company on why I was better for this role than the other faceless resumes and covers they were receiving. This all may sound easy, we all know that that is exactly what a job search is, but have you ever stopped to think about it from an existential point of view? In between every single email you send and every interview you have, you are reexamining your inner self and evaluating if it is good enough for someone else. Someone else who you don’t know. Someone else who you are not even meeting so you can’t read any of their signals.
It is exhausting.
I don’t have any revelation or advice, aside from, take time for yourself. When you are burned out, you are not showing the best of what you can do, which will lead to more rejections. When we take the recovery time we need and find a pace that is comfortable, we start falling into a routine, and when we are in a routine we start to show what we can really do.
