How to cope with job search anxiety: 10 tips

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Many people sometimes think about changing jobs, but never move from desire to action because of fear of the unknown. People are tormented by doubts: how to change jobs, I’m afraid to change jobs, will I be left without a livelihood? Is it possible to take this step at 30, 40, 50 years old? How to decide to change jobs? Let's try to find answers.

Quitting a job you don't like can be a tough decision.

There is a desire, but no determination

Work is an important part of life, so changing it can be difficult. Analyze the situation you are in now. Weigh all the advantages and disadvantages of your current job. Be determined if you realize that there are too many shortcomings and you need to look for a new source of income. Start your path to a new life, the advice of a psychologist will help you take the first step.

Recommendations

If you have found several reasons to quit, but don’t quit, then this advice will come in handy:

  1. Psychology suggests taking “small steps” to achieve your goal. Write your resume on Monday. On Tuesday, select 3-4 vacancies. Submit your resumes on Wednesday. Call a possible employer on Thursday. Go to an interview on Friday.
  2. Take some time and imagine in detail that you have already quit and are working in a new place. If you want to change your profession, devote a little time every day to the responsibilities that you imagine you will have in your new job.
  3. Ask yourself every day: do I need what I do? Do I want to continue doing this? What do I really want to do? If you realize that all this time you haven’t been doing what you wanted, don’t be upset - you’ve gained work and personal experience, and now use it to change your life.
  4. Think about what you work for: for yourself and your development or for colleagues, family, friends? The decision to quit your job or stay should be yours alone.

Motivation to change jobs

Preparation

  1. If you are not going to be fired in the next few days, there is no point in leaving rashly. Changing a job to a similar one does not make sense. Think about what you don’t like here, what you want and want to find in a new place. Take a piece of paper and write down the pros and cons of your current job. Analyze your answers.
  2. If you decide to change careers, learn the details of the new profession and your competitiveness before you take the first step. If this profession is not valued in the labor market, it is worth considering it not as the main source of income, but as a part-time job or hobby.
  3. Write a resume and prepare answers to possible questions from the employer. If your first interviews don't go well, don't get discouraged. Try again and work on yourself.
  4. Before the interview, practice in front of a friend or in front of a mirror. Look the interviewer in the eyes, smile, remain calm and confident. Think of the interview as a performance and yourself as an inexperienced but talented actor.
  5. Before the interview, prepare the questions you want answered: salary, schedule, requirements, etc. It is important not only to please the interviewer, but also to evaluate the company’s conditions yourself before deciding to sign an employment contract.
  6. Search actively. Constantly call, send your resume, contact HR departments.
  7. You shouldn’t leave behind a bad opinion or quarrel with your colleagues or boss. Try to maintain a good relationship with them.

Emerging fears

It can be scary that you won't be able to get a new job after being fired.

It happens that a person thinks to himself: “I want to leave for a new job, but in my heart I’m afraid to do it.” In such a situation, the presence of certain fears can slow down the process. We will look at the most common options.

  1. Fear of making mistakes. Firstly, a person may be frightened by the possibility that the choice of a new profession will be wrong, he will suffer material losses, or lose his current place of work, where he has already established himself as a specialist. It can also be scary that in a new profession you will have to make repeated mistakes due to inexperience.
  2. Frustration with my life, fear that a lot of time and money was wasted on unnecessary training, many years were devoted to unsuitable work. Faced with such thoughts, the individual thinks that there is no need to change anything, because so much effort has been made to be in today’s place. In such a situation, a person may not understand that by remaining in a job he doesn’t like, he will push himself emotionally, become depressed, and be constantly exposed to stress. In this case, the priority should be a change in activity.
  3. Fear of having to study for a long time and get new education. In such a situation, it is important to realize that today there are many courses, short-term programs, and the opportunity to obtain a second higher education in absentia.
  4. Fear that everything will have to start from scratch, the path ahead will be very difficult. These thoughts already represent a lot of fears; a person is programming himself in advance for failure. In such a situation, you need to pull yourself together and realize that, having previously walked this path, you will be able to overcome it again. The main thing is to set the right goals, to realize what awaits you ahead and how much better it will be than what you have now.
  5. Fear of being judged by friends and family. For many people, what others think of them is very important. If this is what scares you, then start thinking critically, you should not listen to other people, you should have your own opinion, and only you know what is best for you. You can send someone else's point of view to listen, but you are not obliged to listen to it and strictly follow it.
  6. Fear of being left without a financial cushion. Along with it comes the fear of unemployment. A person may be scared that while he is retraining, he will be left with a small salary or will have to sit at home without income during the training process. There may also be thoughts that, having decided to go into a new field, the individual will never be able to get a job and will be left without work. In such a situation, a person should not go anywhere; it is recommended to gradually study a new field of activity while remaining at the same place of work. Ideally, if you quit, going not to “nowhere”, but to a new place. In addition, you must understand that if you fail, you can always return to your current industry.

There are people in my circle who decided to change jobs and never regretted it. So one person, working as a teacher at school, studied computer programming in his free time and went into the IT field. My mother worked as a school teacher for ten years, after which she left to work as a postman, and a year later she became the head of her department.

Frequency of activity changes

Employers are suspicious of applicants who have changed their place of business several times over the course of a year. The wariness is understandable: no one wants to invest in a person who will leave in a few months. Such applicants will be asked in detail why they left.

In most vacancies, one of the requirements is to have at least 3 years of work experience. Employers who make such requirements believe that during this time the employee fully reveals his capabilities and fully understands his responsibilities. Some people will not want to accept into their company a person who has worked in their previous position for 3 or 5 years.

It is recommended to change jobs no more than once every two to four years. Otherwise, the applicant will have less chance of a successful interview.

Employers will notice a break in professional activity, especially if it was more than a year, and will definitely ask questions about it. If there are no objective reasons for dismissals or interruptions, then success in the interview is more difficult to achieve.

Job changes should occur no more often than once every 2-4 years

What to do

If you are interested in the question of how to change your job, even changing your type of activity, then you need to think through the following points.

  1. First, evaluate what skills you have, particularly those that are not relevant to your current industry. This will make it easier for you to decide in which direction to move.
  2. Ask yourself what profession seems interesting to you, what you would like to do. It is possible that you will not like the profession for which you have more abilities. And there is nothing wrong with that, because any skill can be developed.
  3. Knowing what industry you would like to work in, you should meet at least five people currently working in this industry. This is an important point, as your impressions can be deceiving, and it is better to learn about what is happening inside from people working in a particular field.
  4. It's also important to think about what you love to do and what you hate doing. These positions will need to be taken into account when choosing a future profession.

If you decide that you still need to leave, follow these recommendations.

  1. Talk to your manager first. It is possible that communication with your boss will make you think. The manager can offer some options that will suit you, and the idea of ​​leaving will disappear by itself.
  2. If you still decide to leave, inform your work colleagues about your intention.
  3. Write a statement. By law, you must work for two weeks. During this period, you need to finish all your affairs and transfer them to your successor.
  4. On the last day, say goodbye to the team in a good way. If possible, arrange farewell gatherings.

How to decide to change jobs

Everyone thinks that it’s time to change jobs. You don’t always need to be afraid of changes in life; sometimes you need to decide on something new and change jobs. Psychologists have come to the conclusion that you can burn out emotionally not only from hard work, but also from boring routine activities. When you work actively and with pleasure, you sometimes get even less tired than from simple monotonous activity and doing nothing.

Internal dissatisfaction

Combustion occurs not from overload, but from internal dissatisfaction with one’s place in life. It is believed that after 5-6 years you need to change jobs, but not more than once every two to three years. Routine drags on, it affects work results and quality of life. How can you decide to change your job so that it can be beneficial? By moving to a new job, you can increase your earnings. But such a measure is most likely justified at the beginning of a career. An older person, especially if he often changes jobs, may fall into the category of flyers and may not always qualify for the best place. But in fact, moving from one company to another is often accompanied by a promotion or prospects for promotion. If you strive for career growth, do not refuse a less prestigious position if the company has prospects for your growth.

Routine

The routine is actually addictive. Performing monotonous actions day after day does not improve your skills, sometimes even responsibility is dulled, things are done automatically, your eyes are blurred, which leads to mistakes and inaccuracies even among experienced workers. If you feel that you are losing your qualifications, then moving to another job will give you the necessary emotional shake-up and new impressions, even if you do not grow in position and salary. When you decide to change your job, carefully monitor the labor market, which specialists are currently required, and which will be required in the future. Everything flows, everything changes, and understanding this, you can master something in a specialty related to your profile. This will give you an advantage over your competitors.

Expand your horizons

You can build your career not upward, not linearly. So, for example, having a specialty as an art critic, in addition to working in a museum, you can work as a decorator or an expert in an antique salon. An economist can move from government to commercial structures. Your versatility will help you remain relevant in the job market. Before deciding to change jobs, you need to weigh the pros and cons. It's not always better where we are not. Changing jobs is a serious matter and you need to approach the matter with all responsibility.

Emotional burnout

Ask yourself questions - is it time to change jobs if in the evening and at the end of the weekend you hate the very thought that you have to go to work again tomorrow. At meetings, you are increasingly bored quietly on the sidelines and want to be as inconspicuous as possible. Communication with colleagues is annoying, they are simply unpleasant to you. If communication with colleagues is painful, this is the first sign of emotional burnout. The manager’s tasks cause dull irritation; you do them reluctantly. Your salary has not been increased for a long time and no additional payment is expected in the near future. At the same time, you will find out that the company hired another specialist for the position you applied for. You don’t want to take the initiative at all; no one is interested in it anyway. You are concerned about emerging health problems, which are especially evident at work. According to statistics, only 9% of people are engaged in what they love, 45% generally like their work, 39 are dissatisfied, but are ready to accept it, and only 7% actively do not accept their work.

No prospects

If you don’t see any prospects at your old job, then maybe you should think about a global change of activity. If you have firmly decided to leave this job, then while you are working, do not advertise this decision. Begin your search for a new job very carefully. Do not post information about yourself in the public domain, your colleagues may see the vacancies (what if they are also looking for a new job), or even worse if management notices. You should also not post ads from your work computer. In the mailing, please indicate only your mobile phone number and a convenient time to call. Don't tell your colleagues, don't even give a hint. You will have time to say goodbye to everyone when you leave for a new place.

If a future employer is wary and wonders how such a good specialist was let go from his old job, you can complain that as your qualifications increase, you are cramped within your current position, and there are no opportunities for growth in the company. That's why you are looking for a new place of employment. You can say that the promising direction in which you worked was closed, you can complain about the inconvenient work schedule, or the company moving to another office located on the other side of the city.

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Is it worth changing jobs?

If in your organization you have reached the ceiling and further development is impossible and you cannot realize yourself. Work turns into a routine, and you do the same thing year after year. In such cases, before leaving this job, you may want to try yourself in a related field, that is, move horizontally in your organization.

Such experience may be useful in the future. If you think that you are underestimated, prove your professional suitability - by showing initiative, take part in competitions to fill vacant positions in your team. And if all your endeavors do not lead to a positive result, change your place of work. After all, according to psychologists, you should change jobs approximately every five years. You should not change jobs frequently. According to employees of recruitment agencies, a person who frequently changes jobs has some kind of personal problems.

Find a new job without leaving your old one

You have decided to quit, perhaps you are tired of the routine, you are not satisfied with your salary, relationships in the team or other problems. Be that as it may, few people leave the office and go nowhere. If you start looking for a new job after being fired, then out of fear of eating away your last savings, you may end up in a situation where you will have to agree to less than favorable working conditions.

First of all, do not share your plans with colleagues, no matter how friendly you are. News travels very quickly in the office. What if, as a result of all your searches, you come to the conclusion that the best option is to stay and work in your current place. Only, it seems that it’s good where we are not. And a new place has its own problems, a new team, new responsibilities. Moreover, having learned that you are going to leave the company, the management may well begin to look for a replacement for you.

Create a new email address for your job search. In your resume, indicate your mobile and home and the hours when you can be contacted. You should not use your work email or work phone. Do not post your resume publicly. Your company's recruiters don't need to know about this at all, and by their nature of work they are frequent visitors to such sites.

You can simply view applications and submit job inquiries. It will take longer. It must be said that the search for employment also involves subsequent interviews. How to be in this case. You won't be able to ask for time off all the time. It’s good if the future employer finds time to meet with you after work or during lunch break. As a last resort, you can take a week off. Although it’s a pity to waste your vacation, you won’t be nervous and ask for time off.

On a note!

When looking for a job, do not neglect your responsibilities. Do the work efficiently and on time. This way you will retain a good impression of yourself even after leaving the office.

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