A Simple Truth About Job Search Anxiety: You Can Only Be So Ready

There’s a simple truth that many job-seekers ignore when it comes to the job search: You can only be so ready.

If you are currently searching for a new job, you’ve likely spent quite a bit of time writing your resume, getting feedback about your interview style, researching jobs, planning your interview wardrobe, and honing your networking skills. These are all practical steps, and should lead to a greater sense of confidence in your career skills, and in the likelihood of being hired for a new position. But for some people, the job search seems extremely nerve-racking, gut-wrenching, depressing, and soul-less.

Putting yourself out there into the job market can certainly produce a great deal of anxiety. Preparing, practicing, and getting feedback can somewhat reduce your anxiety. But let’s get real: many of your job search anxieties may be self-made and self-reinforcing. If you are applying for jobs that you are qualified for, and you have spent an appropriate amount of time researching different positions, and exploring what factors are most important to you in a position or employer, then you are ready.

In some circumstances, it is indeed very much possible to be over-prepared, overconfident and basically “overdone.” So do yourself a favor: get ready, get comfortable, and go with the flow.

One of the best ways to reduce anxiety during a job search is simple, in theory, but difficult and complex in practice, and it’s this: quit wanting a particular outcome, and let yourself enjoy the search. In higher education, we are often called upon to plan our programs and services around anticipated outcomes. In a job search, the obvious outcome seems clear enough: getting a job at the end of the process.

While this is certainly an understandable and completely logical concept, it ignores a simple truth: wanting the wrong things will only cause you pain and suffering. If you approach your job search with an open mind, and an open heart, you are more likely to find satisfaction and a new sense of direction, which are worthy outcomes, in and of themselves.

Some tips:

• Start from where you are. Before you go looking for a new position, ask yourself what you want from the search, and how you will define success.
• List for yourself all the parts of your current job and your current life that bring you joy, challenge you, and give you peace.
• List for yourself those things in your current job and your current life that bringing misery, anxiety indifference, and pain.
• Take a few moments to imagine the possibility that there is a position out there that would be an incredible match for your skills and your experiences, while also giving you joy, challenge, and peace.
• Take another few moments to decide what your “deal-breakers” are. These are the things that you know you cannot do, for risk of destroying your sense of joy, your need to be challenged, and your peace of mind.
• When presented with any opportunity, match it first to those things which bring you joy.
• Hold all the major aspects of the position “up into the light” and look for the deal-breakers.
• When you see a deal-breaker, walk away. Go with a glad heart, and the optimism and that the right thing will come along, and that by passing by an opportunity that would bring you misery, create anxiety and destroy your peace of mind, you have left yourself open to the great possibility that there is something out there in the universe that you are not only capable of doing, but indeed meant to do.
• As you close the door on any opportunity (or have it closed on you), accept for yourself that the opportunity was not meant to be (either now, or possibly ever)
• Lather, rinse, repeat.

This approach reinforces one simple thing: it is always okay to just be yourself, and see what follows. In fact, it is all you can do in your life and career, if you are to find happiness, challenge, and genuine peace of mind.

Fill out the form below to join my mailing list and get free job-seeker resources, starting with an “Are You Ready?” worksheet.