Handling job-hunting stress

Hunting a new job can be a nerve-racking experience. It eats into your valuable time and vigour. Not to be disregarded are domestic obligations, unfulfilled responsibilities, monetary compulsions, plummeting self-respect, and plunging self-assuredness – all these together can wreck havoc to your peace of mind.

But the story ought not be only about turmoil and dejection. There are time-tested convenient steps that you can take to safeguard yourself and make certain that your well-being and mental stability is maintained all through and through. If you decide to make use of them, you will realize that you will be at the wheel throughout the job-searching course. In due course and eventually, you will also come to recognize that you are in the driver’s seat even as far as your career and life is concerned.

Following are five tips that have stood the test of time:

·   Systematize yourself:

This is the best time to address your fundamentals. You should spare some time and ruminate over the good things that have come across you in the past. Ponder over your successes and feel good about them; surely they will hold you in good stead in the times to come.

Since a good resume is undeniably the basic requirement in a job hunt, you should update it; incorporation of your accomplishments in it should be judiciously done. While forwarding a resume, you will need a cover letter and hence it is essential you draft a standard one that be modified appropriately, depending upon the post for which you may be applying.

You also need to make a job-search plan and this should also cater to the time that you would spend knocking doors of employment agencies. Today, things being online, you will also need to browse the net; earmark time for it. A job-search is not the end of the world; things have to and will go on. Therefore you must have time up your sleeves to meet and interact with your friends and relatives.

Remember that if you have a plan, you are better poised for action and thus accomplishment. You will thus be exercising jurisdiction and domination over your own fate.     

·   Follow a timetable:

Adhering to a well-thought of line of action, following a schedule and seeking to implement a do-list is as crucial today as when you would be working. If you set deadlines for realizing objectives and accomplishing tasks; and strive to meet them, you center of attention will not change or blur.

If you maintain a diary and log in time spent on anything associated with your job-search, at a glance you would be able to discern the time being spent on it.

Following a timetable will ensure that you do things in a methodical manner, lay down priorities and do not forget commitments.  You will also need time to refresh yourself and sticking to a schedule will remind you of the time required for your leisure.

·   Ease your life:

Your future will be busy, let there be no doubt about it. Therefore, the present is the best time to get rid of all the mess and muddle that exists; and become tension free. Discard all unnecessary items and dispense with unwarranted activities. If you do this, you will realize that you have time available up your sleeves to clean your cupboard and shelves; and spruce up your room. You will realize that you are better geared up to prepare for all possible employee selection tests.

You will get to understand that by simply removing the clutter in your room, you now have more oomph and a better perception of things around you.

This is perhaps also an ideal time to address your financial affairs. You should direct concentrated efforts to control you personal affairs; once such issues get resolved, you will be better poised to decide on what you actually need and what you do not. 

·   Take time off:

Looking for a job is an activity of great magnitude alright, but of equal consequence is the requirement to devote time to your own well-being. Looking after yourself is important and failure to do so can have serious ramifications.

Remember that a grouchy, fatigued and ill-turned out candidate will never interest any employer. Therefore, you should not try to bring about extraordinary changes in your schedule – if you go for a morning jog, do so or if you watch TV for half-an-hour in the evening, do so. .

You should endeavour to follow a healthy routine – and that includes shunning junk food. Repeatedly tell yourself that life is not only hunting a job, there are many more things that need to be done concurrently.

Try and catch up with time gone by. Connect with your friends and relatives; this will make sure that you are able to uphold a viewpoint and offer you an alternative issue to concentrate on. 

·   Speak & discuss:

There will be times when you will have a tendency to feel beleaguered and disappointed. You need to guard against such a development that has been brought about by job-hunting stress. Remember that when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

You would need to intermingle with others and hence make allowance in your schedule for the purpose. It will be your kith and kin who will cheer you up and provide you with a rejuvenated outlook as also means to vent your disenchantment.

Job-searching is indeed a tough grind; people term it as donkey work. It can cause you immense psychological and emotive disturbance. It is therefore extremely vital that you keep up and not deviate from your center of attention; and contemplate and mirror your earlier achievements.