subject: Stay Motivated When Job Hunting By Giving Yourself A Small Treat For Positive Steps Achieved [print this page] When the competition is fierce it can be difficult to remain confident, optimistic and motivated to continue the search for a new job can feel like a lengthy and dispiriting process.
There are two factors that can have an effect on motivation, one external and the other personal.
Examples of external factors are the regular media updates on such things as unemployment figures, the state of the economy, the ongoing problems in the Euro-zone and the confidence levels of employers.
The Recruitment and Employment Confederation's latest monthly look at employer confidence is a good illustration of this. While it reported that demand for permanent staff had continued to rise in May the rate of growth had slowed considerably, while temporary contracts had decreased for the sixth month in a row. Put in the context of the ongoing worry about lack of recovery from the global economic crisis that began in 2008, it would be surprising if such findings were not a worry for job seekers.
While it might be a remedy to try to avoid listening to or reading the news as much as possible this would only have a limited effect given that most people will know others who have either lost their jobs or who know someone who has, or may be worrying about their own job security.
It is said that the job search process, whether it is for a first job, or the next step on the career ladder, such as from secretary to PA, or from PA to Executive Assistant, is almost a full time job in itself.
For the candidate who is already in full-time work, it can be difficult to find any spare hours in the day while the opposite applies to anyone who is unemployed but it could be argued that a lengthy search with the inevitable rejections is likely to take its toll equally on both.
Careers guidance and recruitment agency consultants both advise candidates to develop a strategy and give themselves daily goals to achieve as well as trying to stick to the timing of a working day to help them to keep the momentum going.
Daily tasks could include searching job boards, updating your LinkedIn profile and checking email. Perhaps keep a list of contacts or companies to approach and call at least couple each day.
Compiling a list of tasks and being able to tick them off is a good way of remaining focused and feeling that something has been accomplished.
It can in addition be helpful to enlist the support of friends and family, particularly for those candidates who are not at work. If you ask them to make sure wake and persuade you to get up before they go to work it will help to resist the temptation to give up and laze in bed or in front of the television when it all gets too dispiriting.
Another tactic is to give oneself a small reward or celebration for small steps achieved such as making an important new connection, receiving a call back for an interview or landing a referral.
The other vital skill to acquire is finding a way of handling rejection, by accepting that it does not make you a total failure. Something worth remembering is that everyone has experienced it and that success does eventually come. Examples are the writer James Joyce, whose first book was rejected 22 times before it was published, and then there are countless well known and successful actors and actresses who are household names but who have nearly all failed at auditions at some time.
