Why resilience is important for job-seekers
Job-seeking may not always go your way, it can be both an exciting and difficult time in your career and multiple things may interrupt your job search. A crucial Part of job-seeking is having the ability to adapt to what ever is thrown at you. Resilience is about being able to bounce back and carry on and learn from your experiences, even after you have had bad news. Sometimes looking for a new job can take longer than you may have expected, and this can be the case for whatever stage of your career you are in. Whether you are a graduate, or you’ve been in a job for years, finding a new or better job can be hard. However, when times get hard, it’s all about keeping a positive mindset and being resilient. It can sometimes be difficult to have a positive mindset all the time, especially when things feel like they are going wrong but it’s important to try your best. Get up and keep going, always doing what is best for you and your career.
Resilience often refers to how you manage stress and difficulties after hard periods/times in your life. You can adapt and learn how to become more resilient and depending on your job-seeking experience, you may build resilience quicker or slower than others. Everyone’s experiences are different and the way you react to highs and lows in your job-search will be different. It’s important to know that not all job-seeking experiences are going to be difficult, you may find your perfect job within a matter of days or weeks. But this isn’t always the case and might not happen for everyone. It’s good to prepare yourself for what is to come. When learning how to be more resilient, you can look back on some of your harder times and think about how you made it through. Use your past experiences to make this time better. You will always come out the other end a stronger person, with the better career you had hoped for. You will grow and learn to feed off of the negatives and turn it into motivation. Not everyone is always good at this straight away. Rejection is not always easy, and some may dwell on it. So, resilience whilst looking for a job is a great skill to have.
How can you develop resilience?
You need to give yourself time away from your job-search, whenever you may need it. If you don’t have one already, it can be good to find a new hobby or develop some new interests. This can be something you do alone, or with friends or family. Make sure you are spending time with the people around you, this will take your mind off job-searching for a while and help you make the most out of the other things in your life. You will appreciate time spent away and come back to job-searching with a more relaxed mind and hopefully ready to keep going. Give your mind a break.
Look after yourself and be less hard on yourself. It’s all about having a good balance. Make sure you are prioritising time for you to have a good diet and get some exercise. For some people, exercise helps them keep a positive outlook, it gets them refreshed and ready to go. If this is not the case for you, find something that has the same effect. Take care of your mental health as well as your physical health. If you want to build more resilience, you have to start being less hard on yourself. Often rejection can be the main cause of stress when job-seeking. It’s normal to beat yourself up a little when you don’t get the job but move on from it. Try not to dwell on the job for a long time, it’s not going to change anything. Being able to praise yourself for trying and carrying on with the next opportunity will help you greatly. This can be a hard thing to get used to as we tend to be very negative towards ourselves sometimes, but make sure you are not holding on too tightly to past mistakes. You will get another opportunity and with the right mindset (and your skills) you can get that job. Not giving up helps you become a more resilient person, so stick to it and believe in your abilities.
Resilience as a job-seeker
Being an active job-seeker will definitely help with your build on resilience. If you are giving yourself set times for your job search and sticking to them, you are showing yourself that you have the determination to get your next job. Get out there and network, feeling in control of your search will help drive you.
If you are rejected by a job you really wanted, or any job, make sure you ask for feedback. Getting feedback from an interview or a job application allows you to move forward with the ability to take their criticism and make the changes to help you further in the future. You are taking their advice, using it and moving on to your next opportunity. This is what resilience is all about, taking a negative situation, accepting the outcome and moving on. It definitely comes with practice, but over-time and throughout your job search and your career, resilience will help you.
Your job-search will be tailored to you and the search may end quicker than expected or take a little bit more time than your thought. Which ever the case, you need to treat yourself with a great level of respect. Don’t put yourself down because things haven’t worked out straight way, if you keep going, you will reach your goals. Resilience is all about getting up and trying again and so is a successful job search. Keep being the ambitious engineer you are and you will get there. Remember that you are doing this for yourself. Job-seeking can be a difficult task and building resilience can sometimes be even harder. It is a good trait to have but make sure you aren’t pushing yourself too hard. Take care of both your physical and mental health and you are more likely to achieve what you want.
