• Home
  • About Sherry
  • Work with Sherry
    • Career Power Hour
    • Job Interview Power Hour
    • Job Search Confidence – land your dream job
    • VIP 1:1 Coaching
    • Women in Cyber Leadership programme
    • BOOK A CONVERSATION
  • Success stories
  • Resources
    • PODCAST
    • ONLINE COURSES
    • DOWNLOADS
    • • FREE Manage Your Career with Confidence and Purpose
    • • FREE 99 Action Verbs To Make Your CV Stand Out
    • • FREE The Ultimate Job Interview Checklist
    • • FREE 15 Tough Job Interview Questions & How To Answer Them
    • • FREE Women’s networking directory
  • The Book
    • About the book
    • Sample chapter and reading
    • About the author
    • Media
    • Interview with the author
  • Blog
  • Speaking
  • Contact Sherry

The Confident Mother

Helping ambitious women in technology fully unlock their leadership potential

7th August 2020

How to avoid stress and burnout when job hunting

Today I want to talk to you about the BIGGEST mistake of all when you are job hunting.

All this week, I’ve been sharing 5 common mistakes to avoid when job hunting. And how to stop making those mistakes.

Everything in this series is based on the experiences of 100s of women who’ve done my LinkedIn training, career coaching or redundancy transition programmes.

These are the tips and tricks that I also share in my Career Conversations group on Facebook.

The biggest mistake of all is getting SO focused on the job hunt that you don’t look after yourself. The end result is you get completely overwhelmed and stressed leading to job search burnout.

Yes it’s a thing. I’ve been there and done it myself so I know how job search burnout can really knock your confidence.

How to avoid stress and burnout when job hunting

You are particularly vulnerable to job search burnout if you’ve been made redundant. You’ve got that financial timebomb ticking ever loudly reminding you every day that you need a job to pay the bills and keep a roof over your head.

So you think … I’ll fill in one more job application. I’ll do one more covering letter. I’ll do one more search.

Job hunting can be so tiring – physically, mentally and emotionally. It may take several weeks or even months to find a new job.

Remember it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon, so treat it as such.

As my client Kate said

Job hunting is a challenge. But the sheer amount of effort, time and brainspace is the biggest challenge.

Don’t spend all day every day focused on nothing but the job search.

Schedule regular breaks from the job hunting.

When you’re researching the Top 10 companies for your Employer Gold List (see yesterday’s post) or you’re completing job applications, if you don’t take breaks, you’ll start to skip or miss important details.

Prioritise your self-care so that you remain positive, confident and refreshed.

Put a regular structure and routine into your day. Make sure it includes something active. Even a 20 minute brisk walk every day will do wonders for your energy, your creativity and your decision-making.

Surround yourself with positive successful people – people who will support you and encourage you when you’re feeling down.

You need to maintain your energy and build your resilience for the (almost inevitable) rejections you’ll face along the way. You can only do that if you focus on avoiding stress and burnout.

After all, there’s no point turning up for an interview if you’re completely shattered and burnt out from the whole job hunting process. You won’t be able to give your best.

5 mistakes to avoid when job hunting

Today was the last in a series exploring the 5 mistakes you need to avoid to be successful in your job hunt.

If you are actively job hunting, remember to take care of yourself so that you don’t end up overwhelmed and burnt out.

For more discussions on this, join my Career Conversations community on Facebook.

p.s. if you’re actively job hunting, facing redundancy or going back to work after a career break, you’ll love Job Search Confidence, a 12 week structured job search programme. Get crystal clear in your job search goals and become the stand out candidate for your dream job – before you even apply! Find out more HERE.

Article by Sherry Bevan / Burnout, jobhunting Leave a Comment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Subscribe to Blog

Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts by email.

Looking for something?

Categories

Archives

Recent posts

  • What I’ve learned about how to be successful
  • How to job search successfully on LinkedIn
  • How to be sure that your employer values you
  • How to articulate your ambitions to protect your gender pay gap
  • How to protect your career falling foul of the gender pay gap

Copyright © 2022 · The Confident Mother · Website design by Helen Taranowski Design