If you’ve read my previous post, you already know the info in the intro, so feel free to skip to the good stuff.
Whether you’re a bartender or a repair technician or a nurse an accountant or an engineer or a writer, I am convinced of this one simple truth regarding the job search process: It sucks. If you’re like me and went to college, after graduating and getting your first job it’s easy to think, “Wow, I did it!” Everyone around has been asking for 6 to 12 months what you’re doing after graduation, and you finally have an answer. Done.
Well, it turns out that it’s pretty rare that your first job is your last job (shocking, I know), and it took me a while to realize that. My first job was so new and different from anything I had ever done before, which was scary and thrilling all at the same time. It wasn’t the role I had set out to get, but the excitement of learning new skills and impressing my managers made me forget that — for a while. After that feeling wore off, I slowly began to realize that I didn’t like what I was doing. At all. I’d convinced myself that I didn’t need or even want to be writing, the one thing I always knew I’d loved. I wasn’t working an insane number of hours per week, but I was doing an incredible number of tasks per month, none of which allowed me to use any sort of creativity or ingenuity, which left me exhausted and unfulfilled. If my job were less demanding, I could have found a way to do the creative things I liked outside of work. But I never had the energy, and it was frowned upon by upper-level management to have any sort of side-hustle. Sound familiar to anyone?
So, after attending a professional conference that opened my eyes to a world outside my company, I decided to start looking for a new job. I’d been at my first full-time post-graduate role for almost two years, which is about average. But it turns out that two years is plenty of time to forget how hard searching for a job is—and how awful it can make you feel about yourself. I knew I didn’t want to quit my current job without another one lined up (because who does that?), and I didn’t just want to jump to another job that might not be a great fit. So I started looking carefully at job listings and applying to ones I thought I might enjoy. I learned two big lessons from this process:
Lesson 1: Sometimes people are jerks.
I applied for the first job just days after returning from the conference. I’d seen a listing on Indeed that night in my hotel room that sounded like what I was looking for, so I went for it. It took a while to hear back, but after following up a few times, I got a response from the hiring manager and set up an in-person chat. It seemed to go reasonably well, and she moved me on to the next stage in the process — having a call with one of the company’s account managers to talk about a client case study and then write up some content for their website, a project similar to what I might be doing in the real job. After the call, I sent over the content I drafted and waited to hear back. A day passed. Then a few more days. Then a week. I followed up and made clear that it was fine if they went with another candidate — I just wanted to know for sure either way. Another week passed. I followed up again. Nothing. The end.
Note: I later heard through the grapevine that the company I’d interviewed at was a bit of a disaster internally, so I may have dodged a bullet. Lesson 1.5: If the company seems disorganized or bad at communication, you should probably run in the other direction.
Lesson 2: Sometimes it isn’t meant to be.
A couple months later, I found another listing, and realized what my dream job was (or, at least, my dream next job). I applied, knowing I was probably underqualified, but I had experience directly related to the role and I knew I’d be great at it. I went through an interview process that lasted a couple of months, culminating in a final on-site interview where I met the team, toured the job site, and learned I was one of only three candidates brought in for a final interview. I vibed with everyone there, and I thought the interview went really well. And then about a week after my interview, in the middle of a normal workday at the job I hated, I got this email:
Dear Becca,
After a great deal of deliberation, we decided to offer the position to another candidate. You were a strong candidate for the position, but the person we hired has an extensive writing portfolio and a great deal of experience in previous positions that more closely aligns with our current need… I believe you’d be a great asset to most any organization, and I hope you don’t mind if I reach out to you in the future should another opportunity arise.
I walked down the hall to the shared bathroom in my office, locked myself in a stall, and sobbed. I don’t even remember if anyone else came in to pee while I was in there. I just knew the only thing I could do was cry.
That job was my white horse — my ticket out of the miserable situation I’d let myself remain in for more than two years at that point. I had no interest in the work I was doing every day. The prevailing mentality that trickled down from my company’s leadership, intentional or not, was, “Who cares how well you do the work as long as you get it done as quickly as possible so you can do more work?” In just two short years, I’d become one of the most senior members on my team because so many others had quit, realizing long before I did that this was not the place for them. I was exhausted. I was lost. And I wanted out.
There were bad days in those six months, days where I feared that no one would ever hire me for a job I actually wanted. I’d considered quitting and just freelancing, but doubted my ability to manage my time (and money) properly. I thought about trying to find another job within the company, but I knew that would be only a temporary fix considering my feelings about the company as a whole.
From elementary school all the way through college, I was always a top-performing student. Everything I did, I always strived to be the best. And it usually worked, which set me up for a rude awakening when I learned that, when you’re looking for a job, employers don’t know your life history. They don’t know that your mom, partner, and friends all think you’re great. They know what you put on a little piece of paper and send to them. And, in that sense, you’re just like everyone else.
I know, boohoo. I got rejected twice. Big deal. But I know this experience is not unlike experiences that many other (middle-class, college-educated) people have in their 20s and 30s, and it’s tough to remember just how demoralizing the process can be unless you’re in the middle of it. For anyone who is in the middle of it right now, it’s important to remember these things:
- The universe isn’t conspiring against you. You might face some difficult situations, but that doesn’t mean it’s the world’s way of telling you you’re unworthy. You are smart. You are worthy. You can do this.
- Something will come along. That doesn’t mean you just sit around until it falls into your lap. But just because you interview for a couple jobs that don’t end in an offer doesn’t mean you’ll never get one (more on that later).
- If something doesn’t work out, it probably wasn’t a good fit. Whether it’s that you’re not right for the role or the culture doesn’t fit with your values, there’s probably a reason things turned out the way they did.
- There are people in your life who love you. If they think you’re great, you actually might be great. Lean on your support system and remember to take care of yourself, whether that means going to your weekly therapy sessions, journaling, or making time to talk to the people you love.
I ended up giving notice (a lot of notice — about 5 weeks) to my company without another job lined up. I’d had enough, and I needed to push myself to apply for more jobs and search harder for some sort of professional opportunity, full time or otherwise. Just a few days before deciding to do this, I’d applied for a job that sounded great, but I knew there would probably be hundreds of applications and I had, I thought, little chance of even getting an interview. But six days after putting in my almost-unreasonably-long notice, I got an email from the hiring manager asking to schedule a chat about the position. We talked the next day, and I got an email from the CEO three days after that to talk again. I went in for a face-to-face interview a week later, and received an offer the next day.
And by the way, I’m now a year removed from accepting that offer, and I am so glad I didn’t settle for something else. I was choosy about where I applied, since I was lucky enough to have a job while I was looking for another one, and that paid off. Trust your gut when you’re researching employers — if something feels off, it probably is.
Reading all this in a short article probably makes it sound like this was a quick and easy process, but it felt like forever to me — which is a good reminder that whatever you’re feeling right now, it will pass. Whatever rough patch you’re wading through, you will end up on solid ground eventually. You may be dealing with a much more difficult or tricky situation than I was, and I get that it’s tough to see the light at the end of the tunnel when you’re exhausted. Don’t be afraid to reach out to people you trust for advice or a shoulder to cry on. Remember that it’s okay to not be okay and to admit you don’t have all the answers.
Because there’s one thing that becomes clearer the older you get: Nobody has the answers. We’re all trying to figure it out every day, and that’s fine.
The key is that you’re trying to figure it out. That’s enough.
becca starkes 