Weeks Two and Three
My original plan was to write weekly job search updates, but as anticipated, the week of 2/6 was not a productive one. Lee and I landed at SFO late Monday night after 24 hours of travel across nine time zones, and spent Tuesday running errands around the Bay Area before hitting the road at 3pm to begin our drive to Boulder. It was a 20-hour trip that took us three days, and between the driving and the jet lag, I was exhausted at night and barely made progress on my job search goals. I did myself a kindness and let my goals for the week roll over into the following week, guilt-free. We are only human, and harboring “coulda, woulda, shoulda” thoughts when life gets hectic is both unrealistic (we can’t change the past) and counterproductive (we’re wasting energy on guilt instead of using it to progress). So, for anyone feeling guilty about what they “should” have done yesterday, last week, last month: let it go. Reset, and move on.
The week of 2/13 was far more productive, which has helped keep my job searching energy levels up, but it wasn’t without its share of emotion.
Accomplishments:
I finished *most* of my website updates and published them so I could start using this space professionally, as well as personally. I still have some feedback from friends that I need to implement, but this space will constantly be a work in progress, and I’m not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I set up several phone calls/coffees/lunch meet-ups with friends of friends and some people I know here, which gave me an excuse to reconnect with some folks I haven’t spoken to in years and am genuinely truly excited to catch up with. It made me reflect on how many valuable relationships I let lapse while living in the Bay Area, despite living in proximity. Of course, life gets busy, and I’m particularly motivated to connect with people right now since I’m the new kid in town, but I’m going to try to keep this in mind as I fall into more of a routine.
I set up a job searcher profile with some recruiting and job search sites: ZipRecruiter, Indeed, and Otta. Otta is a bit more niche and I’m new to it, so I’ll reserve judgment on its value for now, but I’m not expecting much from ZipRecruiter or Indeed. That said, it takes little to no effort to set up a job searcher profile, so why not? I’m also using these to proactively find opportunities.
I set up job notifications for certain titles on LinkedIn and Otta, and get daily emails from both with notifications about new postings that meet the criteria I set. Applying early after a role is posted is so important, so this helps me jump on opportunities quickly.
I made a target list of companies, and spent some time researching the Boulder/Denver area tech and social impact scene. There’s a lot happening here, and a lot of resources, so I have only scratched the surface. This is going to be one of my ongoing priorities, since it’s too big to tackle in one or two weeks!
I started biweekly accountability check-ins with one of my friends, Sarah, who is also job searching (if you need someone with a background in data science, quantitative research, or analytics, reach out!). This has been helpful for accountability, since we set goals together that we commit to reaching before our next check-in, but it also gives us both something concrete to look forward to in our search. One of the things I see again and again while supporting job searchers is how valuable community can be. So much of job searching is putting yourself out there and then not hearing anything back, which can be extremely isolating. Going through that with another person is infinitely easier, not to mention how helpful it is to bounce ideas off of and get feedback from someone else.
I applied to two jobs, and got rejected from both of them! This was, ironically, encouraging - with all of the recent tech layoffs, I was worried about companies letting existing job postings languish. A rejection means that the roles weren’t sitting idle, and that the companies were actively managing them. While I’d prefer to get concrete feedback on why I was rejected (was the role already filled? Cancelled? Did they just get a lot of highly qualified candidates? Or did they see a critical skills/experience gap in my application that disqualified me?), even a generic rejection is a data point that I can use to help me narrow down my search. Once I have more data (e.g. rejections, interviews, and offers), I’ll write a post about how I used this information to adjust my approach.
Week of 2/20 priorities:
My research last week unearthed some companies here that I’m excited about. They’re not currently hiring for any roles I’d be a fit for, but I’m going to try to get in touch with people who work there so I can learn more about what they’re doing.
Increase my application rate - I only submitted two applications last week, since I was still in the information-gathering phase, but a few new jobs opened up in the past couple days that I’m excited about. My goal this week is to apply to 10 jobs, including reaching out to people who work at those companies to follow up.
Unsurprisingly, my profile gets a lot more traffic when I’m active on LinkedIn
Start a regular posting cadence on LinkedIn by cross-posting these job search updates there. When I posted my job search update a few weeks ago, my profile views skyrocketed 3,600%. Since then, they’ve decreased steadily, down an average of 66% week-over-week. In addition to hoping that these updates could be helpful to other people searching, I also want to stay on top of people’s mind. As my partner said, I gotta feed the algorithm.
While searching for full-time opportunities, I’m also pursuing some part-time contract roles, so I have some follow-up to do on those.
I have a handful of catch-up calls/meetings this week. I’m finding in-person meetups, when possible, to be very energizing, and they help me get out of the house.
Tl;dr and pro-tips:
If you get off track or don’t make the progress you want one day or week, don’t dwell on it. Replace “I should have…” with “I’m going to…” in your internal monologue.
Job searching is better with friends. Find a buddy who is also job searching, or join a community of people on Slack, Facebook, in person, etc. to help create accountability and support. You can find these online by simply searching “[field] job search community,” and for anyone impacted by recent tech layoffs, my stellar former colleague Frank is building a community specifically for you here.
Related to the above, use the opportunity to reestablish contact with old connections. Who knows, they might know of something or someone who can help you in your search, and at the very least it’s good to catch up with people.
Make time for fun, and get out of the house. I treat job searching like a job; I do it during business hours, M-F. I’ll keep a passive eye on my email and LinkedIn in the evenings and on weekends, but only to respond to people, not to proactively do anything. I went for a hike this weekend with my partner, and am making sure we have time in the evenings to relax together. I also try to go to cafes once or twice during the week; even if I’m doing the same thing as I’d do at home, it’s motivating to be around other people.
Keep track of what you’re doing and the results. I share more on this below, but I hit a bit of an emotional wall at one point last week. Talking about it with people was ultimately what helped me move forward, but it was also helpful for me to be able to contrast my emotions/anxiety with what I was actually accomplishing. Evidence doesn’t always prevent those emotions from popping up, but it makes it much easier to separate out what you’re doing from what you’re feeling.
How I’m feeling:
In my last post, I felt energized and optimistic about my search. I still feel energized, but I was hit with a heavy dose of doubt and anxiety last week. I felt overwhelmed by how unfamiliar I am with the local job market here, discouraged by the lack of jobs that are directly relevant to my skill set, disappointed by my lack of progress, and anxious about being financially dependent on my partner and unable to contribute much to our shared expenses.
My rational brain knew all of this was unreasonable: obviously I’m unfamiliar with the local job market, I just started to explore it; it’s silly to be discouraged by a “lack” of directly relevant jobs, new ones are posted all the time, and besides I’m very interested in exploring roles that go beyond the niche I’ve carved for myself the past few years; lack of progress? I’ve hit all the goals I set for myself, and then some - what progress was I expecting that I’m not making?; and lastly, I’m extremely fortunate that my partner and I are in a position where his income can support us. Much as we might enjoy the double-income-no-kid lifestyle, we can very much manage without my salary. Finally, I chose this; I left my job last year to indulge in 10 months of travel, a *massive* privilege, knowing I’d come back to depleted savings in a new city and likely facing a rough job market. And now I’m… stressed? After a mere three weeks of dedicated job search efforts? Get real, Kathleen.
Despite repeating all of that to myself, I still felt the existential dread creeping in. It’s funny, when I was unemployed by choice I felt confident in my position. But the moment I decided I was ready to go back to work, that confidence melted away. I started feeling the pressure to just apply to whatever jobs I could find en masse. Then, on Friday morning I met up with a friend of a friend for coffee. He’s in the process of starting a company, so is also in a very emotional, tumultuous, and uncertain period of his career. Despite that, he had a really energetic and positive outlook on exploring something new, even with the unknown looming over him. We talked about our dream jobs, what we’ve loved and hated about our past experiences, and management/leadership philosophy. Hearing his optimism helped yank me out of my negative headspace, and was a good reminder that this process can and should be exciting, intellectually stimulating, and even fun. I’ve been in positions before where I needed a job, and I have allowed my current mental state to slip back into that place of scarcity and fear, even though that is no longer my situation.
I realize my reality isn’t true for many, many people, so some of you may read this and roll your eyes at my ill-founded anxiety. That’s completely fair and you’re 100% right to roll your eyes. It’s also fair to have a lot of financial and emotional baggage, rational or not, tied up in our employment that makes the process of job searching far more fraught than it ought to be. So I don’t share this for sympathy, just in the hopes that anyone else who is experiencing a lot of feelings over their own job search can feel validated, and hopefully glean something from my own processing.
If you’re going through it and want someone to chat with, please reach out - the more I connect with people, the better I feel, and I’m always happy to be that person for others, too!
