5 ways to spice up your job search & 1 achievable yet lifechanging resolution

[Allegedly] but I'll try it out for us

Happy 2024 friends!

Photo by Joel & Jasmin Førestbird on Unsplash

Before I get into it, I just made this latte and oatmeal with apples, peanut butter, sprinkled with cinnamon. Did anyone else forget how good this staple is for when you don’t feel like making breakfast? Just me?

Unoriginal, takes 2 minutes, so filling, so satisfying.

So when I was away the past holiday week, I did the classic “leave your phone in a drawer” move to disconnect and be more present. I soaked up much needed quality time with family and friends. Journaled for hours on end. Lost all sense of time. Challenged myself to avoid checking work email and chat (successfully). Curled up under a cozy blanket and watched a tiny bit of Vermont snowfall. It was glorious.

Not many photos to share given phone in drawer: top 2 are just of cute festive drinks, bottom left cute festive VT bar with my mom (she is the BEST), and lastly Taylor gifts + Eras at home :)

In my heart I know I manifested the joy I found in 2023 and what ended up being the best year of my life because I learned and grew and moved through way less sparkly times. Just one year ago I was recovering from a surgery that felt deeply personal and terrifying. Before that I was depressed from social media harassment and also felt like I was floundering at work. And before that I had my heart broken and lost who I was for a bit. The point I’m making here is not every year feels good and some moments in some years feel quite dark. 

But it can get better. And now I cherish the joyful moments and the resiliency I’ve honed even more than ever before.

I’m thinking of anyone feeling this way and hope for a change in your tide soon. Everyone has a story to tell and I am so inspired by others I’ve found in my short couple of months on Substack. Happy New Year to this amazing community of talented writers and thank you for lighting a fire in me - I didn’t think I could ever actually do this until I stumbled upon this place. And it’s really, VERY nice to not feel rushed by anyone here to get after resolutions.

In fact, it’s a soft, compassionate vibe and I’ve been loving the sentiments across Substack encouraging giving ourselves grace and self compassion to kick off 2024 instead of going hard reinventing ourselves (top of mind is

Kate Eskuri, DNP

; she never misses &

Feasts and Fables

; so soothing) among others and I am so here for it.

I’m all about going gently and I want to set myself up for success by committing to things that are within reach but also a challenge, so I’m sharing one simple yet impactful resolution I am going to try to stick to:

Get up right away without scrolling on my phone first thing in the morning. 

Lately some research has been showing that lying in bed glued to our phones wreaks havoc on our mental health and productivity at the start of the day, and those that try this out swear by it as a lifechanging decision that they immediately feel benefits from. Quick results for an enhanced life that doesn’t actually require much of me? Sign me up. Tomorrow is Day 1, so I’ll report back after doing it at least 1 month 🙏

Getting back to work yesterday after a long break was in one word; lethargic. Even my laptop was asking me wait, who are you…? when I logged in. For real, I had to reauthenticate twice before it let me check my email and for the first time ever I was welcomed by an auto chat (on our version of Slack) that said “we haven’t seen you for a while, here’s what you missed” lol thanks? Wondering if anyone else was greeted like this or was I the only one who actually stayed off my work phone? 

Anyway, I couldn’t decide what to write about this week especially with the “clean slate” and “fresh start” of it all, some pressure that felt a lot like writers block remnants creeping in but very proud to say I immediately turned that sh*t off and said nope not today. Very timely within the same hour, I stumbled upon

Elin Petronella

​​lovely space (reading her thoughts felt like a hug from a friend tbh) and I loved how she said overthinking her writing is not something she can do in her current season of life. So liberating and really landed for me. 

Plus, I am heads down in writing performance reviews this week and I’m treating this as my mental headspace reprieve. I also tweaked my bio & About page and feel crisp on my why for writing, which is keeping me focused on staying true to my vision. So here we go! 

Today I’m pulled to normalize how tough it feels to be on the job hunt at the start of the new year. This is for anyone feeling uninspired while dealing with high expectations for that ~fresh start~. I get it, it’s very hard when you are feeling too drained/busy from your current job to devote energy to searching. It’s equally hard when you are unemployed feeling helpless with seemingly limitless hours in the day to search, you might even start to feel numb. My friend is discouraged sending applications out online that seem to go nowhere and was looking for other ways to find traction. Straight from my first career coffee chat of 2024, here’s what we talked about.

What I do to spice up my search when feeling helpless:

1. Scour Job Tools. LinkedIn is elite for scouring and reaching out to first, second, and third degree connections to get their thoughts on your situation. Look through your friends’ & mentors’ & random former coworkers’ connections. Create a list of at least 5 contacts to start. I also recommend signing up for Glassdoor Jobs alerts because I have found those to be more curated and fitting than LinkedIn jobs (mine are on right now to stay aware of what’s out there). You might miss something or get overwhelmed if you get inundated with several a day, so I’d try to stick to 2-3 tools and set them up as weekly emails.

2. Humanize your situation. Spread out the reachouts or do them all at once if you prefer, but an absolute must is to draft customized messages. The worst look is that obvious copy/paste + sometimes forgotten edit that’s too cringe to risk it (I’ve done it, it stings). Take the tone of sitting down for coffee and asking if they might be willing to help. Be vulnerable and authentic, connect over something in common, and cut through that professional jargon BS we’re all eye rolling from on LinkedIn. Human to human.

3. Don’t put too much pressure on your connection. In my opinion, asking to chat on the phone can be too much for people if you don’t have that relationship, and immediately turns them off to responding because they don’t have time / can’t make time / they have 15 other messages asking the same. Sharing your situation, you can simply ask “do you know anyone I could reach out to learn more, or might be a good connection for this type of role?” and sign off with “anything you can share would be helpful for my search process and I’d appreciate your thoughts” then see what happens next. My reach outs (both ones I’ve sent and received) that take this approach prove more likely to move to a quick chat in the end after building rapport before immediately invading time.

4. Have others that get paid to do this help you. Talk to a staffing firm. This is where I started my career (spoiler it wasn’t for me) BUT there are so many firms out there and some really passionate, talented recruiters too. Chances are you’ll know someone working at one from your scouring in step 1. It doesn’t hurt and can only help you to reach out and have your resume in their database so they can send you temporary or permanent roles. And on that note… 

5. Don’t rule out temporary work. I’ve had two contract jobs in tech that led to full time opportunities because I worked hard and connected with the right people that made it happen for me. If I was personally in a bind and able to swing it with alternate benefits options, I would consider doing it again for the right fit. 

If you have other tactics for anyone feeling stuck in search purgatory, we’d love to see them in the comments to keep this list going.

Coach Erika

I look to you as a major guru in this space - anything you’d add? 

And to close, this rec from a dear friend meant the world to me this week. Right back at you

Kyle Coapman

☺️

Have a great short work week, we’re almost to the weekend!

Jess