It’s almost summer. I’m tired of looking for jobs. What do I do?
Internships. Jobs. How would you describe them?
Exciting? Fun? A learning experience? Maybe something along the lines of “The Internship”?
All good descriptors, but what about tiring? And I don’t just mean tiring once you start them, but what about tiring before you even start? What about tiring just searching for one?
We talk to recruiters, we talk to all of our friends, we tailor every resume to the position we want, and we end up with…nothing. Sure, maybe we got a few connections out of it and some experience for the next interview, but it can be discouraging after trying to find an opportunity for so long and not be able to find something that aligns with our interests.
To put it plainly, it can really suck, can’t it? We might see all our friends posting about their plans for summer and post-graduation and, here we are, one of the only people we believe to still looking for some sort of work experience.
But here, right from the beginning of this post, I want you to know something: We are not alone.
We aren’t alone in two main ways:
- There are other people (our fellow peers) in the same situation.
- We have people who are willing to help us look for opportunities.
Here’s how this post is structured:
If you feel burnt out about finding an internship/job and want some help dealing with that, read the first point (having other people in the same situation) and then head on to the second point (people who are willing to help us look for opportunities). On the other hand, if you don’t feel burnt out at all or just want some help ASAP, you can head straight to the second point in the post.
Point 1: There are other people in the same situation.
A couple weeks ago, former iSchool career adviser Janet Matta held a workshop titled, “Job Search Burnout”. And guess what? People (our fellow peers) actually came out to the event to hear what Janet had to say!
During the workshop, Janet had a strong focus on, you guessed it- job search burnout! I’m going to provide a brief summary of what was said during the workshop in this post (as I think Janet’s points are really valuable for keeping us motivated and successful in our searches), although if you want more details you can watch the recording down below.
Here’s a brief summary of the workshop:
1) Develop grit.
Practice the miniature components of the thing you’re hoping to improve as a whole. For example, become the master of resumes, the master of interviews, the master of networking. Whatever area you choose to focus in, focus on a miniature component that you want to study and excel in.
Not only that, but remember why you’re doing what you’re doing (Janet calls this “Connect to Purpose”). Essentially, keep your motivation nearby at all times. Ask yourself questions like, “What will having a job help me do? How will having a job help me transition to your next stage in life?”
Next, you’ve got to have some hope. Keep a sense of optimism. We all know the search has been taking longer than expected, but a bad attitude towards continuing our searches won’t help us at all. We need to see our failures as learning opportunities rather than setbacks, and see how far we’ve come from where we started. Get your fire back. Get your bounce back in your step. Keep a positive attitude.
Lastly, you’ll need to surround yourself with “Gritty” people. Hang out with people you know will stick it out with you until you get that opportunity. Hang out with people who you know have been in your situation before (wink wink, many of us have). Like Janet says, “They’ll rub off on you”. Check in with your friends regularly. Maybe consider a “Job Search Buddy”, and develop a regular system for checking in on one another.
2) Outline your process
Before we start making changes to our job hunt, we need to first understand our approach. What are we doing daily, weekly, monthly, etc. towards our job hunt? Are we checking LinkedIn for postings? Sending emails to friends? Attending workshops? Emailing recruiters? What are we really doing?
Essentially, we need to understand what we’re doing so we can make improvements.
Asking these kinds of questions will leads us directly to the last step in this process:
3) Evaluate
What has gone well in our searches? What have we done that has led to successes? Whether those successes be connections, previous work opportunities, getting an interview, whatever it may be we should ask ourselves, “What have we done that’s worked?” Keep those in mind. Push your strengths in those areas and continue to gain success from using what has worked from you in the past.
On the other side of the coin, what hasn’t worked? Where are we spending time that doesn’t end up producing much value to us? Whether that be dead end contracts, certain types of application methods (like only applying online/large job posting boards, etc.), particular companies/types of companies, etc., we need to make changes in those areas and possibly try out new approaches or devote time to things that have worked for us in the past.
Alright. That was a lot of information, I know. And you might be saying, “Okay, awesome. Thanks for the encouragement and all, but how can I get some additional, specific-to-me, help in my job search?”
Point 2: We have people who are willing to help us look for opportunities.
Quick question, do you know who Dean Kirkpatrick is?
Well, Dean is our Career Services Advisor.
I could go on and on about all that Dean helps provide to the iSchool, but I’m just going to say it plainly: Go talk to Dean.
Please.
If you’re looking for advice on what to do in the upcoming months, or need any career help at all, I can recommend no better person to contact than Dean Kirkpatrick.
I recently talked to Dean about what students should do in the case that they’re looking for opportunities this summer, and he gave me so many suggestions and options that I couldn’t keep up with my note taking. In our talk, Dean really drove it home that “It really depends on your situation and your skills.”
What more could you ask for, right? Specific help, from a career advisor whose goal is to help you be successful not only in the upcoming months, but in the long-run? Yeah. Go talk to Dean.
All the information about booking an appointment can be found here, and Dean’s contact information can be found here.
But wait, there’s more!
Dean also mentioned 3 other things that he wanted me to share:
- There’s a workshop called, “Alternative Summer Plans” that is being held next week! This will also be led by Janet Matta and will focus on what you can do if you don’t end up getting an internship this summer (spoiler: you can still do cool stuff this summer even without an internship). Event details can be found here.
- Dean’s advising spots can fill up from time to time (especially with him being our only career advisor at the moment). However Dean says, “Another option students can use is the main career center if they are having issues finding a time with me or even if they just want another person’s ideas (I will not take any offense!)”. Schedule an appointment with the main career center here.
- There’s a career fair coming up on June 21st (mark your calendars)! It’s admittedly later in the year, but since there aren’t anymore career fairs happening at UW this quarter (that Dean told me he knows of), he suggests going to this career fair as a good option! Details about the career fair can be found here.
Final thoughts
I know that I’ve given you a lot of information in this single post, but I hope I drove the point home: We are not alone.
Not only are other people in the same boat as us, but we have people who are on our team and rooting for us to have great experiences in the upcoming months.
Applying to jobs and gaining experience is all part of growing professionally, and sometimes periods of searching and waiting (maybe times like this) play a role in that process. But even with that in mind, we have resources and people available to us; resources that can help us be successful, if we utilize them.
