In case you hadn’t noticed the sadly neglected blog, I’ve kind of stepped away from the computer for over a week now. Well, less from the computer, more from my social networks and this blog.
I’m going to take a moment here, take off the professional happy face, and just be honest.
I’m on the verge of burn out. I’ve been unemployed six months. During this time I have been just as busy as I was while ‘working’. The difference is, the past six months have been focused on me… working on my resumes, cover letters, online portfolio, blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, checking the job boards, making connections, applying, following up, interviewing, researching, hoping… wishing…
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been thinking. I’m still doing all of the above. But for about 30 minutes a day I sit in the car line, waiting to pick my niece up from school and just think (and listen to my iPod).
I never expected to be here. I never expected to graduate and make my part-time college job a full-time job. I never expected to be laid off two years later. I never expected to still be looking for a job half of a year later. I didn’t think I would have to write dozens of cover letters and I definitely didn’t think I would ever lose track of the number of interviews I had.
Yet, here I am. When I got laid off I felt confident that it was for the best. I was unhappy in my position and I knew that there was no room for growth there. I had already started my job search anyway, now I would be able to dedicate all of my time to it. No more difficulty while trying to schedule interviews. Since my job search had been going strong for a few months already, I expected to find my dream job in three months or less. I was obviously wrong.
Still, I continued on, month after month, interview after interview. Every time I didn’t get a job I assured myself that it wasn’t meant to be. Everything happens for a reason. I still believe that… but I’m starting to wonder if I’m missing something. Maybe there is some other big lesson I’m supposed to be learning and I won’t find employment until I do.
Or maybe the economy just sucks. Hard to say.
I know there are people out there who have been fighting through unemployment for much longer than I have. How are you handling it? I feel like I’m falling behind, despite my best efforts to stay up to date with all things marketing, communication and social media related. Am I the only one doing a lot of thinking and reflecting? What else can I do right now to help my search? Let’s start up some honest conversation.
You definitely are not the only one thinking and reflecting about your life and your unemployment. The thing that I feel is the hardest about this recession is that it’s put a huge number of young people out of work, and people in their 20s and right out of school don’t have the same experience to back them up, they don’t have the same experience to have built up confidence and faith in their skills, and they don’t have the same experience to know exactly what they want next.
This place is a hard one to be in, no matter how you look at it. But sometimes I think it’s much harder on younger workers because we just don’t have enough life experience to feel like we’re going to be okay. Then again, I can’t imagine what it would feel like to have worked for an organization for 10 years and be dropped to find my way somewhere else. None of it’s good.
I’m coming up on my one-year anniversary of being out of work. What do I do about it? Focus on what’s gone right (i.e., the people I’ve connected with who have helped me, the praise I’ve gotten, the projects I’ve worked on, etc.).
It’s hard not to let this stuff get to you, and I think we all deserve a moment every now and then to fall apart. This is HARD. And it SUCKS. I’ve cried hard over my one-year revelation.
We break. We rebuild. Then, we move on. Because, what else is there?
What have you been doing to get involved and get your face out there? Have you thought about working independently, as a freelancer, for awhile?
I try and tell myself regularly that there’s always another way, I just have to find it.
I totally agree with you about young workers. It is definitely an additional hurdle. It’s tough to keep confidence when you haven’t had the time to build your confidence up!
I try my best to do the same as you- focus on the things that have gone right and the things I’ve learned. Still, like you said, it sucks! But in the end I think it’s all about how we deal with this situation and what we take away from it (hopefully by the end we’ll still have our sanity!)