What can you do but be anxious when you can not get a job?
By a sinking boat, a thousand sails pass,
Before a sick tree, ten thousand trees spring.
In the post epidemic era, a time when the global economy is not doing so well, finding an ideal job is not very easy.
In this environment, too many websites, individuals and career coaches have emerged to teach us how to find an ideal job. They always have something to offer, researching the companies you are targeting, revising your resume, customizing your interview answers, networking, and finding another way to show your value ……
There are also a variety of ways to showcase your abilities in different industries. In my industry, software development, you can help others to solve technical problems on sites like Stack Overflow; you can contribute to open source on platforms like GitHub; you can develop your own software or website; you can show your problem-solving skills by taking weekly contests on LeetCode; you can take a bunch of certificates such as AWS/Azure/GCP certifications; you can get to know more software developers and recruiters…
There are a lot of choices in front of us, or rather, too many.
Each of the choices here takes time and effort, and the most important is that we don’t really know how well it pays off. Additionally, the more of these things you look at, the more anxious you get. Because your competitiveness doesn’t look like it’s left at all under all this advice.
The program above is certainly great. However, it’s exhausting to keep looking at yourself and reflecting on yourself under the pressure of a job search.
If you’ve been looking for a job for a while, and if you know anyone who has a job, you’ll notice that most of them, have not completed the above program, and I mean, any of it.
I would have to say that for most of us, the market dictates our job search experience. That is to say, if the market is good, you get a job easily; if the market is bad, even if you rack your brains, you may still get nothing.
Remember, not everything that doesn’t go well is because you’re not good enough.
So what we can do is to stop the anxiety, remove the unnecessary pressure, and start doing things that really work:
- Understand the market, define programs and develop yourself. Get to know the market and the last skills that are welcome in the market by submitting your resume; based on that knowledge, define a program for yourself that is dedicated to self-development. Developing those skills is not just about putting their names on a resume, it’s about proving to a potential employer that I’m good at it/I’ve studied it and can deliver results.
- Once you’ve clarified your program, stick to it. The program can be fine-tuned, but don’t change it again if the deciding factor doesn’t emerge. This is because most changes are made because of anxiety, not thoughtfulness.
Seeking simple and effective paths doesn’t always work. Simple and effective paths often require painful and deep thought, or a flash of insight, to explore.
The vast majority of the time, the only thing we can do is the dumb way, persevere and move forward.
Take your time, you will get it.