Delay my career for any job… or keep applying?

With how many months we’re already into the pandemic, there’s no doubt that some of us are now facing that question head-on.

My heroic peers who have hit or are already well into the three-digits of applications know that it’s a real reality to ask “when should I give up?” Where do we draw the line between realistic and fantasy? Do we actually have what it takes to even get that position we’re going for in these times… with how tough the competition is, how tightly-guarded the companies are. and how flooded the recruiters are.

If you’re one of the lucky ones who either have some savings that can last a while, still working and just looking to jump companies or switch careers, or a support system to fall back on; the answer is simple — just keep applying. You’re not in a rush. You might feel like you are because you hate where you currently are, feel like you’re stuck, or just need a new change of pace (understandable seeing how we’ve all been stuck inside for the past few months). But you’re not.

Put your situation in perspective, keep your foot on the pedal, and keep going. Time and energy are our two resources here, and you have both. You might have less per day if you’re working, but for you — unlike for those unemployed — it’s a renewable amount that refills daily.

And if you have a strong family support system for financial needs that you can rely on? Or a emergency/living fund you can comfortably live on? Then there is zero excuse for you to stop. The rejections and higher rates happening right now is just reality. Yes, its tougher than during an upturn but it’s still reality pure and simple. Face it.

Now if you don’t have those; if your living funds are running low, if you’re a new graduate, if you’re unemployed and scared of the seemingly ever expanding time in the current gap of your resume — you have a hard choice to make.

If your money is low and you can’t get UI (either because you didn’t hold employment before or because of how overwhelmed the system is), the harsh reality is you need to get your basics down first. Without family or friends to lean on, you need to get your own basics settled. And that means you just can’t afford to be full-time in trying to advance your career. Find a part-time or gig-job to pull yourself over as you keep applying. Try to see how you can conserve energy to balance both, though more than likely the job you’ll be doing will sap you of all your energy to apply at night.

A lot of graduates during the Great Recession in ’08 have already seen and gone through this fate. With jobs spare, they had to find and do whatever they could while waiting for the jobs to come back with the economic recovery.

No lie or comforting words. That delayed their career life. It set them back. And it hurts. There’s nothing quite like seeing someone years younger than you with you as a cohort when you finally get that entry role. Someone who graduated years later. You feel like you’ve been shortchanged. By timing. By luck. By no fault of your own.

You have.

And that’s why you need to keep going even when you’re tired. Now, realistically — there just aren’t enough jobs to go around. If there were, we wouldn’t have these problems. So we have to find ways to mitigate as well.

Working as a grocer while still throwing your resume to every software engineer position you can? Sorry, you’ll need to add working on a side-project or open-source project to keep your skills relevant for the future.

Doing Uber Eats while networking like crazy to get that marketing position? Yes, you’ll still need to do keep learning new marketing tools, manage some sort of low-budget portfolio, and practice your interviews.

And you’ll have to do this whether you’re getting bites or not. Because the reality? If you don’t do all of those — because you’re tired, because your circadian rhythm is in chaos from weird shift times, because you don’t have time, then even when the economy recovers you won’t be able to get those jobs.

And that does nothing except delay your career for yet another few years when you suddenly realize that your skills have rusted and rush to renew them before applying again.

This is the same whether you need income NOW, are a new graduate, or just got unemployed. If you’re not working, applying for work is a full-time job. Unfortunately for those of us who ARE working, but in a rush — it’s even more than that because we have to stack it on top of what we’re already doing. It’s a full-time on top of a part-time (or another full-time), and there’s no way around it unless we want to risk being stuck in our placeholder position for an unknown amount of years to come.

Good luck. If you liked what you read and are interested in seeing more learnings as I go along in my progress, please share, subscribe, and leave a clap!