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"Feeling defeated after job-hunting for six months with no luck. Any advice?"
The expert: Ibiyemi Balogun is the Founder of FITD Consulting, a career coach and the 2020 recipient of Talent Egg's Career Coach of the Year. Here's her advice:
If you feel defeated during your job search, it is totally understandable. Job hunting is a process of rejection and redirection, and if you don't actively take care of your mental health and re-write your narrative, it can easily get you down.
A great way to stay motivated through a difficult job search is to document the process: your wins, your progress, your missteps and your learnings. This allows you to objectively see your growth and the progress you have made in your job-search journey.
A good way to document your progress is by using a simple Google Sheet or Excel document. It should have columns to highlight every single application you have sent out, the ones that yielded interviews, the ones that yielded second interviews and the ones where you connected with a recruiter or a hiring manager. It allows you to look back and see that you are not just tirelessly sending out applications.
Another way to document your journey is through sharing candidly on LinkedIn. I had a client once who was having a tough time translating her entrepreneurial experience into "real work experience" for employers. She took to LinkedIn to half-vent and half-express her frustrations about this experience—and the outpouring of encouragement from fellow entrepreneurs, hiring managers and recruiters alike were unmatched. That single Linkedin post got her into coffee chats, networking events and email exchanges with people that built her confidence, validated her efforts and ultimately helped her secure a role two months later.
If you are discouraged, you just have to look back to get encouraged by how far you have come and look forward to sharing your experiences of where you are going.
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