How To Deal With The Pressure Of Job Hunting

It’s not completely strange to feel stressed, frustrated and under pressure when job hunting, especially when you are not making positive progress. There are several reasons why you should be under pressure or anxious when job hunting, like, why were you not called for an interview or why weren’t you contacted after you did your best during the interview. Stress also comes from the inability to meet your needs or pay bills. In fact being without a job alone is a pressure on its own. Anxiety also comes from comparing yourself to other candidates, and this tends to affect the confidence you have in yourself negatively. All of these, if not handled can negatively affect your performance during an interview and cause you to become a nervous wreck that does not have the ability to perform on the job there by causing you to miss that particular employment opportunity.

The essence of this article is to provide you with tips on how to handle the stress that comes with job hunting. So how do we deal with the stress of job hunting?

 DON’T COMPARE YOURSELF TO OTHERS

As a job seeker, comparing your progress with that of your contemporaries especially your classmates in collage can put you under some serious pressure; because you will feel you need to measure up to their standard. Stop comparing yourself to them, rather understand that everyone at some point do have their low moments and what you need to do when you are experiencing yours is to put in that work and effort required of you to land that new job.

BE PERSISTENT

You must understand that landing a new job requires a lot of hard work and commitment. Therefore rather than bugging your mind with the previous opportunities that did not pan out well, persistently pursue other opportunities, continue building relationships with recruiters and also think of better ways of improving your recruitment chances. Continually embark on research in order to improve yourself and also fine tune your interview skills

MAINTAIN POSITIVITY

Irrespective of the challenges you may encounter during your job search always maintain a positive mind set. Do not take rejection personally; instead focus on your capabilities with the hope of things going well. Pressure can mount up as you experience one setback or the other during your job search, but to scale through this it is important to make positive affirmations to yourself that can serve as an inner motivator.

AVOID NEGATIVE THOUGHTS

 Due to previous failures and rejections, you may be tempted to start thinking you are a loser who can’t accomplish anything and this can cause loss of confidence in your ability. Allowing negative thoughts to occupy your mind will only make you demoralised and discouraged. So don’t waste time thinking of your possible failures, use that time to think of ways you can improve your chances of landing that new job in the next interview you attend.

CREATE A JOB SEARCH SCHEDULE

Develop a detailed schedule which you will follow in order to have control over your job search process. Sometimes it might look like you are overwhelmed by the various job search activity you need to do. That’s why it’s necessary to come up with a plan that outlines things you need to do weekly in order to increase your chances of landing a new job efficiently. Having a job search schedule can help reduce the pressure that comes from job hunting, because with the schedule you already know the activities you need to carry out and when they need to be done. Activities can include updating your online profile across all platforms or calling recruiters to follow up on a previous interview etc.

If you do not properly handle the pressures that come from job hunting, you will only be limiting your chances of landing that new job.