i've been in search mode for about 4 months. employed but miserable at current place, so there's the added fun of keeping it together at work while processing rejection after rejection on the side.
what i'm experiencing, since we're apparently doing honest posts in this thread: persistent low-grade dread. trouble focusing during the stretches between rejections. the thing where you get a rejection and feel nothing because you were already bracing, but then it catches up later. a fairly significant reduction in how much i enjoy stuff i normally enjoy.
i don't think i'm in crisis. i think i'm experiencing the documented psychological grind of a prolonged job search while employed, which has its own specific flavor that's different from unemployed-and-searching. the financial pressure is lower. the social pressure is higher because you have to pretend to care at a job you're leaving.
honestly: how long did this last for people who got through it. i know it ends when you find the thing but i mean: does the low-grade dread lift partway through the search, or is it just there until the end.
also: has anyone found anything that actually helped with the emotional weight mid-search that wasn't "exercise more" and "talk to friends." i do both. they help some. i want more options.
6 replies
sam_recovering
the employed-but-searching specific flavor is really real and weirdly underrepresented. you're doing two jobs and neither one gets your full presence. the dread usually did lift a bit for me when i had any active process going. the worst stretches were the ones where i had no onsites scheduled, just applications out in the void. having something concrete on the calendar gave me something to aim at instead of just waiting for bad news.
on your question about what helped beyond the standard answers: i found that having a hard stop time on job search activity (for me, 7pm, nothing after that) gave my brain a reason to actually recover instead of half-working all night. the background processing kept happening but the active stress got bounded.
quietquit_quincy
the hard stop time is genuinely something i haven't tried. i've been doing late-night application sessions and i don't think they're producing good work anyway. going to try capping it. thank you.
nonprofit_nia
i did this for 6 months, employed and searching, switching sectors. the low-grade dread was there most of the time. what changed it wasn't one thing. it was getting to 3+ months of search and realizing i had survived every rejection so far and was still functioning. the evidence accumulated that i could handle it. that didn't make it fun but it made it less scary.
laidoff_lena
for unemployed-and-searching the shape is different but the dread thing is the same. one thing that helped me: i spent 30 minutes once a week writing down what i actually learned that week about interviewing or about what i want. it wasn't therapy. it was just data. it made the search feel slightly less like it was happening to me and slightly more like something i was doing intentionally.
de_derek
i don't have a timeline answer but i'll say: the dread being there doesn't mean the search is going badly. it means you care about a thing you can't fully control. which is an accurate read of the situation. being at peace with job searching would actually be the weird outcome.
sdr_sky
small thing but: i started keeping a "wins" note. not wins like offers, but: got a response to a cold outreach. had a good conversation even though it went nowhere. prepped really well for a round. made the note long enough to scroll. it helped more than i expected because the search has positive events in it, you just stop noticing them when you're tracking the rejections.