13 Things Mentally Strong Job Seekers Never Do
13 Things Mentally Strong Job Seekers Never Do
13 Things Mentally Strong Job Seekers Never Do
By Jessica Sweet
August 14, 2020
Summary
If you or anyone you know is job seeking, you’ll know the mental toll that looking for a job can take.
A 2012 study in The Academy of Management Journal reported that job searching is one of the most grueling tasks because it is a “highly autonomous, self-organized, loosely structured, and ill-defined rarely receive feedback effectiveness.” Now that tens of millions of Americans are job searching, mental strength is both a challenge and a top priority.
In addition to there being little structure and feedback, the pressure to perform — actually land a job — is high. Being successful seems to rely on a witch's brew of confidence, past performance and luck, which may or may not come together to create magic.
When the success formula seems unscientific, it's easy to be disheartened. However, there are things in your control to make the process easier and more successful and preserve your mental strength.
Here are 13 things mentally strong job seekers don't do that can rip other job seekers to shreds. The good news is that you can do these things to take control of your job search and mental strength.
They don't job search alone. Job seekers who maintain their mental strength know they need the support of others. Other people help lift you when you're feeling bad, but they can also help move your job search forward when it's stalled out.
They don't play the 'apply online' game or keep making other job search mistakes. Applying online is so 1990s, and job seekers who have their head in the game know that they can't make this kind of mistake and others that will leave them feeling like they are beating their heads against the wall. Instead, they create a modern job search strategy that includes applying for jobs through networking and other strategies that work.
They don't let their physical health go. It's been said that job searching is a marathon, not a sprint. A job search can potentially last months; mentally strong job seekers know they need to take care of their physical, emotional and spiritual needs and not let themselves get run down.
They don't compare themselves to other job seekers. When one job seeker compares themselves to another job seeker — one with better experience, one who found a job faster, one with a more impressive résumé or educational background — it does nothing to advance them and everything to crush their confidence. Mentally strong job seekers know this and they keep their eyes on their own paper.
Someone else's success isn't their failure. When a mentally strong job seeker sees someone landing a new job — even one that they might have wanted — they don't see it as their own failure.
Reference
Sweet, J. (2020, August 14). Council Post: 13 Things Mentally Strong Job Seekers Never Do. Retrieved August 16, 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2020/08/14/13-things-mentally-strong-job-seekers-never-do/