The Amateur Financier

If you’ve been unemployed for an extended period of time, had frequent periods of unemployment, or simply held jobs that didn’t meet your needs or desires, you’ve probably spent a lot of your time job hunting.  I know that in the time since I graduated from college, that’s been a major part of my daily schedule.

If you’re like me, though, you’ve probably had periods where you just got tired of the constant searching for a job.  After all, job hunting can be just as hard as many jobs, without the perks of health care or being paid.  So, how do you move past these periods of no motivation and keep up the task of job hunting until you find new employment?  Here are a few suggestions to help you keep or regain that job hunting fire:

Just like job hunting, only with more shooting

1) Be sure to take breaks: You might be tempted to spend every waking hour looking for a new job, using as much time  as you can to find somewhere new to work.  Unfortunately, this sort of approach is counterproductive; while you might be able to keep up this pace for a short time, you’re likely to burn out if you don’t get a job in a few weeks, leaving you frazzled and unmotivated.  Rather than risk this sort of fatigue, limit how much time you spend job hunting each week.  Only do your job hunting during certain hours of the day (between nine and five perhaps, just as if you were working), take regular breaks from your computer to rest your eyes, and try taking a few days off each week.  As long as you are still putting in plenty of job hunting time, a short reprieve every now and then won’t have much impact on your prospects.

2) Try a different search method: A common source of job hunting fatigue is the repetition of doing the same job hunting technique over and over again.  If your job hunting methods are few, it’s going to be much harder to keep motivated over the weeks (or even months) that it can finally find a decent source of employment.  Rather than becoming a one-trick pony, try a variety of job hunting methods; break up emailing resumes with making follow up phone calls, or spend some time talking with other unemployed individuals to learn the latest job hunting techniques.  While we’re on the subject of other people…

3) Join professional groups: Joining professional groups can give you several advantages on the job hunting front.  You’ll have something more to add to your resume, you might have access to additional job hunting resources like group specific job hunting websites, and of course, the ability to connect with other people in your field to share ideas and job hunting advice.  If nothing else, it can give your people with whom you can vent when the job hunting gets tough.

4) Keep your job qualifications up to date: It’s hard enough to find a job in a slow job market when your skills are up-to-date and you are at the peak of your employ-ability, but try to do so when your skills are out of date, and it could be impossible.  Your best hope is to keep training regularly, going back to school for more education or attempting to boost your skills during your spare time.  Besides giving you new things to add to your resume, it’ll help you to expand your mind (a good goal in itself) and provide you with something to do while hunting for another job.

5) Look into other job possibilities: If you’ve ever wanted to do something different with your life,a period of unemployment provides you with the opportunity to retrain and turn your career path around.  You’ll have the time to take classes, study up on new technology, and get any other training you will need for your desired profession.  It’s an opportunity to remake your life if you don’t like the current direction in which it is going.  If you don’t want to completely change your life, unemployment is still a good time to try some new things:

6) Take up a new hobby or part-time job: Having free time during unemployment gives you the opportunity to explore your other interests.  You could take up a new hobby (I like blogging, as you can probably tell, but to each their own), spend more time working on your current hobbies, or try to find a way to turn your hobby into a source of money.  Goodness knows, there are enough freelancing and craft selling sites that it can prove pretty easy to monetize a variety of hobbies.

If you can’t monetize your hobby, there are alternate sources of money in the short term; you can get a part time job.  (Note: if you are currently receiving unemployment benefits, you need to be careful with part time work; be sure you know whether working will disrupt your ability to receive unemployment, and if so, be sure you take only jobs that pay more than you are currently getting in benefits.)  Admittedly, it might be hard to get a job in your preferred field; but you aren’t (necessarily) trying for a whole new career, just getting a part time job to help make ends meet.  You can get some money, and perhaps even remind you of why you like your previous job.

There you go, several ways to break up the boredom of job hunting.   Good luck in your job hunt, and hopefully, you find something soon.

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