天美传媒

1. Get to know yourself

You should be defined by far more than your job title, so you need to spend some time discovering what motivates you, where you get your energy and those things you need to avoid.聽When I started work I was terribly shy and was delighted to learn that as a very junior analyst I wouldn鈥檛 get to speak to clients (bag carrier and coffee buyer was essentially my early job description) and for years I carried around the notion that I liked independence and solitude.聽It was only when I started doing consultancy work based at home that I realised I really missed constant human interaction and I was only really motivated and energised when in the middle of a cut and thrust debate with clients and colleagues.聽Having that knowledge has allowed me to change my practices so I get that level of interaction and am recharged by it.聽If you don鈥檛 know what fires you up, or conversely drags you down, then remaining positive is a game of chance rather than skill.

2. Turn off your newsfeed part 1

We all understand that bad news sells and we are inundated with it right now.聽Bank of England economist Andy Haldane summarised the issue when he said 鈥淢y concern at present is that good news on the economy is being crowded out by fears about the future.聽Collective anxiety is as contagious, and could be as damaging to our well-being, as this terrible disease.鈥澛燛ven if before you were required to be literally up-to-the-minute on world events, why not try checking in on developments in the news only once or twice a day instead and taking the pot of media alarm off the simmer?

3. Turn off your newsfeed part 2

Most social media involves people trumpeting about their personal, family or business successes.聽Even LinkedIn, a supposedly serious networking platform is turning into a forum for just bragging and聽I鈥檝e seen聽posts showing off expensive new cars and others berating anyone who dares to 鈥渉ate on鈥� someone鈥檚 success.聽It鈥檚 hard to stay positive when you perceive everyone else is doing well but keep in mind that some (maybe most?) of this is bluff and bluster, so be ruthless in who you follow and are connected to if you鈥檙e using the network for jobhunting and research.聽Alternatively, just commit to spend less time on social networks and when you do browse them, do so with a purpose and stay away from the narcissists.

4. Stay busy

You are used to being busy through daylight hours.聽Many of us have had time to adjust to working from home which broke the travel, work, travel rhythm of the day but still filled all of usual working hours.聽Hopefully it won鈥檛 come as a surprise but there are just as many hours in the day and you can you fill them equally well or better than you did at work.聽Exercise, do those routine maintenance jobs you keep putting off, spend time catching up with friends and colleagues (actually speak to them, don鈥檛 just fire off a 1 line email), do the school run, start that hobby you have an interest in but could never justify committing time to.聽DO NOT sit around and wait for the world to come to you.聽It won鈥檛.

5. Be ruthless in your job search

Job hunting is tough.聽Job hunting in a global pandemic is downright depressing.聽There may be a temptation to just carpet bomb every job which has a keyword in it and hope something sticks but this would be a mistake.聽If you鈥檙e sitting on hundreds of automated rejections or non-responses (which my data shows around 47.5% of applications!) then it is going to be nigh on impossible to maintain your self-esteem.聽Research potentially interesting roles and determine if it is right for you and if you are right for the job.聽If so, then commit time to addressing the requirements for the position and thinking about how you solve their problem before applying.

Seek feedback from roles you don鈥檛 get but thought you were in the running for, as this can help you identify blindspots in your profile (we all have them, don鈥檛 kid yourself that you don鈥檛).

Finally, if you鈥檙e being ruthless about which jobs you target then also be ruthless in who you deal with.聽If you make a number of applications to a company or through an agency and never get a response or they won鈥檛 give you any feedback, seriously consider automatically disregarding anything they might advertise in future as you are clearly either not ticking enough boxes or raising a red flag in their systems.聽You don鈥檛 have the time or mental energy for people and business who are closed off to you, so move on.

6. Be patient

This will take time.聽It will take more time than you imagine.聽Don鈥檛 expect the world to change overnight or a new job to drop into your lap tomorrow.聽It will eventually, and you may get lucky with the first application you make, but believing in the long game means you should avoid the disappointment of feeling like you鈥檙e not getting anywhere fast.

7. Don鈥檛 draw comparisons with others

This should be true of all things in life but we鈥檙e human and it鈥檚 part of our nature to size up how we鈥檙e doing against others.聽Beating yourself up over why x wasn鈥檛 made redundant when you were or how y聽managed to get back into a new job before you doesn鈥檛 gain you anything.聽They are different people with different lives who may just have been in the right place at the right time.聽Let them tell their story, you focus on yours and all will be well in the end.