How to Get Out of the Job Search Head-Space and Do Something Else with Your Time

by Stephanie Leigh Taylor, former Head Editor, INALJ British Columbia
previously published 8/1/13

How to Get Out of the Job Search Head-Space and Do Something Else with Your Time

Flag_of_British_Columbia.svgYou’ve been clicking refresh on your email like you’re waiting for your Nigerian pen-pal to send you your millions.  You’re checking your phone like someone’s having a baby and you’ve got money on the gender.  I know it, because I’ve been there (I am there), that after that rush of submitting an application comes a lot of waiting, hoping, internal wailing, and asking strangers to pray for your job prospects.  Job searching is more stressful than dating, because you don’t expect your dates to pay you for showing up (at least not in the library profession), so how do you get away from the stress & mental exhaustion of mentally willing interviewers to contact you so they can grill you in a small room that will inevitably be too hot or too cold?  We here at INALJ do not advocate or condone binge drinking to forget your nail-gnawing gut-twisting stress, so instead, maybe pass your time by doing something like…

  • Cross off something from this list, 100 Things to Do During a Money Free Weekend.  You’re either underemployed or straight-up unemployed, so you probably don’t have much dough to spare, and the suggestions on this list are either fun or things you should be doing anyways.  Pantry purge, anyone?
  • For more existential-y tasks, 52 Projects gives you a project a week that will take you out of yourself, and get you focusing on your past, reaching out to friends & family, or doing something creative.
  • When waiting for hiring committees that are really dragging their heels, start up a 101 Things in 1001 Days list for yourself.  It give you just under 3 years to complete 101 self-dictated tasks either serious or silly, from learning a new language to learning how to cuss in a new language.
  • This last one is so self-evident to someone in the library/information science profession I feel dumb suggesting it, but READ!  This huge-ass tome, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, does double duty as a list of the best & greatest literature that was published before 2006 and as an excellent missile.  Seriously, I’ve held babies lighter than this book.  You’ll definitely find something in here that’ll prompt a trip to the library, where who knows?  They might be hiring.

 

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