85. Staying Motivated During A Long Job Hunt

[00:00:00] Patricia Ortega: Hey friend, welcome back. You ever wonder how to keep your spirits high during the job search, especially when those no's or the silence starts piling up? Well you'll be happy to know that you are not alone. So many people go through this and in today's episode, we're going to explore how to stay motivated and turn every step, even the setbacks, into progress.

[00:00:28] We'll start with number one, and that is focusing on what you can control. Did you know there's two different types of goals and most people only focus on one of those two, which actually is kind of ineffective. What are these two goals? The first one is a process goal. Most people don't focus on this, but a process goal is proactive.

[00:00:51] It is 100 percent within your control. Some examples of a process goal would be sending out messages to hiring managers, [00:01:00] applying to positions, preparing, and practicing for your interviews. But then there's outcome goals. This is the ultimate result. This is actually a reaction coming from your process goals.

[00:01:13] And this is primarily out of your control. For example, some outcome goals might be getting an interview, getting a callback, but the ultimate outcome goal is getting the offer. And an outcome goal, getting the offer, is dependent on the effectiveness of your process goals, which would be your applications, your networking messages, your interviews, etc.

[00:01:39] So what exactly does this mean for you? It means that you've got to back up a little bit and set up some process goals first, meaning I need to make sure I send out X number of messages, I need to make sure I apply for X number of positions, I need to make sure I'm preparing and practicing for interviews, but you [00:02:00] do that and over time you're going to add up several instances of these messages, applications, interviews, and you're going to get feedback from these process goals.

[00:02:10] You're gonna use that feedback to tweak, pivot, and improve their effectiveness. So you might start out sending a batch of messages and then go back and look at that data and realize they're not as effective as they could be. Now you've learned more, you've had more experience. You're going to tweak, pivot and improve those messages and then go back out and continue to send emails.

[00:02:32] So what you're doing is using your process goals and the feedback from those to improve your chances of meeting your outcome goal. So all that to say, it's much more encouraging to focus on your process goals and at the end of the week, look at what you had to do that week and say, you know, I did great.

[00:02:52] I sent out exactly the number of emails that I said I was going to send out. I applied to exactly the number of positions I said I would apply [00:03:00] for, and I completed XYZ tasks to help me prepare and practice for the interview. That is a win. Here's the second thing. You have that win, now celebrate it. This could be an application submitted, a connection made, a new skill learned.

[00:03:15] Even feedback that you receive, because feedback is information and you need information to figure out the puzzle. You need information to tweak, pivot and improve those actions you're taking week to week. So what you're celebrating here, you might think, well, you're asking me to celebrate a failure. If I got feedback, it means I didn't get the job.

[00:03:37] Well, what I'm saying is you're celebrating the progress, the fact that you're closer to your ultimate goal. Imagine it this way. Imagine that you have a bucket and every action you take, every interaction you have is a drop of water. If you see your action, or for example, no response as a failure, There's essentially a hole in your [00:04:00] bucket that drop leaks out and you're back at zero.

[00:04:04] That's how your mind looks at it. And because your mind is thinking of it this way, you will actually be back at zero. You won't harness the information you learn and use it in the future. But if you take the flip side and you see every action and every outcome, including not having a response or getting a no, thank you.

[00:04:24] If you see every one of those actions and outcomes as information and therefore progress, what you're telling your mind is, please keep that drop. And your bucket will soon be filled with action, with experience, with feedback and information, and ultimately with skill. And that is all preparation for the well versed interview and well versed communications that you'll have later on in the process.

[00:04:48] That means that your communication will be more clear, It'll be more confident and more articulate. And that clarity and confidence and articulation, that's earned. You can't [00:05:00] actually grasp it on the first day. So you earn that and you're earning it now. And that's why you celebrate your wins. Think of every drop in the bucket as a win.

[00:05:10] You are filling your bucket and over time you have more to pull from. More information, more experience, and again, more skill. So this is why you celebrate every single win, every single interaction. Now the next thing is to set realistic expectations. My friend, this process takes time. And ghosting and rejections, unfortunately, they're just part of the process.

[00:05:37] And you may have yourself said no to an organization or two along the way. You may have even decided not to even reply to an organization because you're probably really busy and these things happen. Now, should you be ghosted by an organization and not receive any response whatsoever? I don't think so.

[00:05:56] I don't think that's the right thing to do. But it just [00:06:00] happens to be the way things are. And so setting those realistic expectations means accepting what is naturally a part. I wouldn't say naturally, but what is unfortunately a part of the process. And separating that from you as a person, whether they respond to you or not, is not a reflection of you as a person.

[00:06:20] And even if they look at your resume and say, you know, I don't have time to respond to this email. I'm going to move on to these other resumes. All that means is that the words on that resume weren't the words they were looking for. But again, if you're able to separate it from you as a person, it's so much easier to say, you know, I got to tweak my resume a little bit, or I don't have to tweak it, but maybe it just wasn't what they were looking for at the moment.

[00:06:45] Now there's a whole other episode, multiple, that we can do on troubleshooting your resume and how do you know if you need to change your resume or if it just wasn't a good fit and instead of changing your resume you just need to change the [00:07:00] type of organizations you're reaching out to or the type of roles you're applying for.

[00:07:04] That's a whole other conversation, but in terms of just motivation, right? Assuming that your resume is a good fit for this organization. Now it's just separating, you know, when you feel that rejection to feel that rejection. of the resume or the words on that resume and not of you as a person. And setting realistic expectations can make all the difference in the world.

[00:07:29] So imagine this situation. Imagine you're tasked with gaining a thousand new followers through a social media campaign. You work really hard and you actually get to 3000 followers.

[00:07:39] You're super excited. You've exceeded all expectations, your praise and you're feeling so proud of your success. And now you go into your next task, even more excited and just ready to continue the success. Now let's assume the exact same scenario. You're given a similar task, but this [00:08:00] time the expectation is to reach 5, 000 new followers.

[00:08:05] You put on the same amount of effort and gain the same number of new followers, 3, 000 new followers. Even though you gained 3, 000 followers, you feel like you absolutely failed. You feel like you didn't gain any followers. It's now disappointing because the expectation was higher and now you think you failed.

[00:08:23] Same situation, same result, but the emotional response is completely different how you'll come in the next day, how you'll be able to put forth your best effort and your highest level of energy and excitement and your level of confidence and self efficacy and the outcome that will come from that in the future.

[00:08:44] All of it is completely different because the emotional response was different and the emotional response was different because the initial expectation was set either too high or too low, depending on what we're talking about. In this case, the expectation [00:09:00] was too high, 5, 000 new followers, right? So we want to look at what are realistic expectations.

[00:09:07] We don't want to make up our own expectations. So to give you an example, let's say that I started job searching. And I had this expectation in my mind, not having talked to other people, not having researched. I had this expectation that, you know, I've worked so hard on my resume and I've worked so hard on drafting this email communications to hiring manager of ABC company that I really do believe and expect that they will get back to me.

[00:09:36] So excitedly. I type up this email, I send it off with my resume, I'm really excited about it, I think this is really going to be it. And when I don't get a response, I feel like I absolutely failed. That's because whether I said it and articulated my thoughts or not, I believed and I set an expectation for myself that this was going to be it.

[00:09:59] [00:10:00] However, that may not have been realistic. Now let's assume that in a different situation, I'm now in the job search and I'm thinking, okay, people are really busy. I've seen how long other folks on LinkedIn or anybody who shares their experience, I've seen that they job search for three, six, nine months, sometimes even to find that right fit job.

[00:10:21] And I hear all this information about people getting ghosted and rejections and how defeating this whole process could be. So I'm going to set a realistic expectation that I'm going to reach out to 10 to 20 hiring managers. And for every one of those 10 to 20 hiring managers, every time I send that batch out, I might only hear back from a few people and that's normal.

[00:10:45] If I set that expectation, a realistic, even a conservative expectation, when someone does get back to me, it'll be a win as opposed to dwelling on those who did not get back to me. So at the very beginning, [00:11:00] ask yourself, what am I expecting? Is it realistic? And what might be a realistic or a conservative expectation?

[00:11:09] So let's say now that you did set a realistic expectation and it's not happening. You told yourself, okay, four out of 10 or whatever your number is, three out of 10, I will get a response. But you get zero and you send the same batch, right, different people, but you know, you follow your process and you batch send 10 emails, 20 emails, 30 emails, 40 emails, and absolutely nothing.

[00:11:37] What then? Is that a complete failure? Well, here's the next thing I'd share with you. And that is to reframe rejection. That's actually not a complete failure. Instead of seeing this as a major setback, think of every action and yes, every rejection as a step forward. While this is an [00:12:00] episode encouraging you, it's also an episode about taking action.

[00:12:03] So here's how you can take a reaction and every rejection as a step forward. Rejection and setbacks, they're actually feedback. They give us information that then we can use to ask really important questions. So if you have been going through your process, you set realistic expectations and nothing is happening.

[00:12:24] It's not a failure in terms of dead in the water. Nothing's happening. I failed. Now it's a time to ask what information have I learned? What types of companies have I been reaching out to? Maybe it's not the right type of company. Maybe these are companies that are too large or too popular.

[00:12:43] Oftentimes, I see this all the time. Someone will come and say, okay, I want to work as, um, I don't know, a marketer or software engineer, right? And when I ask them, you know, what are the qualities of some companies that you'd be interested in working for? Almost everybody [00:13:00] goes straight for the companies that are most well known.

[00:13:04] And let's say, for example, they go for Microsoft and Apple and Meta. You're literally going for three companies that are the highest, most competitive companies in the world, whose You know, their strength as a company might be really strong, but their culture may not fit you, what they're looking for, experience level may or may not fit.

[00:13:24] There's so many aspects to it and being a recognized company, a household name does not necessarily mean there's the right company. So a, they might not be the right company for you, meaning you might not enjoy working at that company. . And B, in this case, for what we're talking about today, you might realize that your resume is actually geared towards a quickly growing organization, not a well established and mature organization.

[00:13:52] So, again, rejection or setbacks give us information, feedback to then ask important questions like, what information did you learn? [00:14:00] What does this mean for your job search? What do you need to tweak? What can you improve? What are you missing? And ultimately, what action do you need to take or change? So what do you need to change, start doing, stop doing, right?

[00:14:18] What action do you need in order to succeed? Is it a pivot in your goal? Is it a pivot in your process or a pivot in your communication? Ultimately, the goal of the entire career search, you got the short term goal, which is, of course, you want to get hired. But ultimately, there's also another goal. And that is a goal of learning, of experimenting, of finding the right mix of emails and companies and roles, really putting the puzzle together and finding your sweet spot.

[00:14:49] And in that you grow these problem solving skills in an area that maybe you weren't too comfortable in before, but moving forward in the next two, three, four, five years, [00:15:00] you're not going to be that much more comfortable because you learned how to do job searching the right way. And you held back those feelings of rejection and discouragement and insecurity that unfortunately, even the most qualified candidates tend to feel.

[00:15:18] So you're in great company. If you ever feel discouraged in the job search process, knowing, know that the most qualified candidates are right there with you. And chances are you are one of those candidates. Now, here's the thing. The last thing I'll leave you with is to take care of yourself. Now, please don't miss this.

[00:15:36] I know you can so easily press that button to go on to the next episode or onto your next podcast, but don't miss this. Taking care of the other areas of your life outside of work, meaning family, sleep, health, fitness, this makes you more resilient. So make time for activities that recharge you: [00:16:00] exercise, hobbies, spending time with your loved ones.

[00:16:03] Maybe it means that you schedule networking conversations with your current network to mix up the experience, right? You may not be hearing from cold outreach, but you will be hearing from people who already know you. Is someone in your network particularly encouraging? This is a time to cash in on that wonderful relationship and ask, hey, can we schedule monthly or bi weekly meetings?

[00:16:26] I just, I'm having a hard time going through this career change process. I would love someone to remind me of what I have to offer as I go through this, search process. And when one thing goes wrong, if everything else is taken care of, it can be just a blip in your world. But if the rest of your life, if your family life, your sleep, your stress levels, your, uh, health and fitness, if those things are also falling down, not at a hundred percent.

[00:16:55] One thing going wrong can be the last straw that really [00:17:00] just pulls your whole life down. Unexpected setbacks, those can be devastating. A family member who gets sick or a natural disaster maybe destroys your home or an accident changes your life forever. But the career switch blues, that's something we can expect.

[00:17:18] We know it's going to happen and something we can prepare for. So getting good sleep, spending time with family, staying healthy, staying active, enjoying your hobbies. All of these things remind us that we are more than work and we are more than a career search. And having these areas of our life at or around a hundred percent makes the job search and it's potentially discouraging moments, a small part of our lives that we can much more easily bounce back from if everything else is in good shape.

[00:17:53] Remember my friend, that your career is a marathon, not a sprint. So celebrate every step. Learn from every [00:18:00] setback and keep your focus on what you can control. Take care of yourself along the way and don't forget that the goal is never really just to land an offer, but to master this job search process so that you never again have to worry about how you're going to make your next career move.

[00:18:17] All right, so that's it for today, but join us next week because Dale is back and we are going to help you set some goals for 2025. I'll talk to you then.

[00:18:26]