The Struggle of Job Searching in Your 20s

Job hunting in your twenties is an emotional rollercoaster filled with rejection fatigue, imposter syndrome, and the pressure to compete in an oversaturated job market. 

And somehow we're all supposed to do it with a smile on our face?

In a stage of your life where uncertainty is the norm, it's hard to figure out if you should pursue something you are passionate about or commit to a job that allows you to fulfil your lifestyle choices. 

In this week's episode, we talk about the reality that no one prepared us for and offer useful strategies to maintain your sanity and self-worth throughout the process.

Chapters

• 0:34 Welcome to Job Hunt Hell
• 2:01 Rejection Fatigue and Identity Crisis
• 6:54 How LinkedIn Makes Everything Worse
• 11:11 Contradictory Advice That Drives You Mad
• 16:47 Practical Tips From the Trenches
• 20:47 What You're Actually Learning

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:17

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the 20s Survival Guide. This is your host, emily. Today we are getting down to business. We are talking about some real difficult stuff that you go through in your 20s Not that we don't normally, but this is about job hunting and I'm not gonna lie, I have been through this this year as I've been hunting for my second job, and I'm pretty sure that most of you have experienced this too. The job hunt has been wild. So we're going to talk about it today because I feel like it can be really lonely when you're searching for a job, when you feel like you're constantly getting rejected and you just lose all hope, like what was the point of me going to university, what was the point of me getting a degree, if no one wants me? But you also know that you're intelligent and you just hope that someone sees it. But at the same time, the job market is so oversaturated right now it's just a whole thing. So I'm here to be your sympathizer and we're going to get through this. I feel like job hunting in your 20s is just such an imposter syndrome thing. It's just a ton of rejection, and then you're supposed to stay sane when you get rejected constantly.

Speaker 1: 1:27

So, without further ado, let's get into the episode. So I'm here to talk about the reality that no one prepared us for, because I definitely wasn't prepared for it. I thought when I left university I would have had at least some credit, the fact that I have a degree that would help me to get a job. You know like, okay, I've got a degree, I've got a pretty good degree from a great university. Surely this has got to mean something. But then you start looking for your jobs, right, and you go on LinkedIn, you go on Bright Network, and you will see the most unrealistic expectations from these jobs that are asking for so much experience when you don't even have any. Because, of course, how are you supposed to have any when you've just left university? A lot of jobs that I was looking at have at least one year of experience in a specific field, and it's okay if you have internships and things like that, but that still doesn't really equal up to a year, so it just automatically eliminates so many opportunities. You know I've seen so many that are like grad roles but entry-level five years experience Like how does that make sense? Or a job that wants you to move to another city but also create a new brand strategy for like 20k and how are you supposed to pay rent?

Speaker 1: 2:48

And then the worst part is when you're looking and you're trying and you've also just left university and you're thinking I don't want to talk about this with anyone because I'm struggling enough and the next family member comes over and asks you what you're doing with your life, how the job, job hunt's going, if you have a job yet, honestly, at that point I'm just going to my room like I'm not coming out, like I'm done. I'm going to hibernate forever. If any family member asked me when I was job searching, if I have a job yet, it's just the last thing you need. So that's just the tip of the iceberg, because it is hard enough out here. And then the next thing, the next stage of the process, is the emotional burnout. If you've been here, you get it the emotional burnout and identity crisis.

Speaker 1: 3:31

And to those who don't have or haven't been struggling with a job search, you might think this is a bit dramatic. Trust me, it's not. I like to refer to this as the rejection fatigue. So everyone tells you when you're job searching that in order to get a job, you're probably gonna have to be rejected like a hundred times and you have to just be like, yeah, cool, can't wait. And it gets exhausting because, no matter how good you are at taking rejection well, it is soul-crushing sometimes, especially when you get rejected from firms or companies or jobs that you were so excited for them to to accept you or to give you another interview. It can just be so heartbreaking at that point and then it really discourages you from wanting to keep applying. Once you get to about even 10 rejections, that can be really, really discouraging and it makes you fatigued. No wonder if you're getting 20 rejections a week. It can really make you question your whole experience, what you're doing, your identity, if you're even going for the right things.

Speaker 1: 4:35

And, honestly, when you see your friends who have jobs, it can really be disheartening because it's very easy to tie whatever you're doing, your job, to your self-worth. Because whether you do or not, if you're going to a gathering or a meetup or an event and someone asks you what you're doing, you instantly judge them based on what they are doing with their life, with their career. Whether you want to or not, you know, if someone says they're an engineer, you'll think about them differently to someone who says they're in marketing or someone who says they're in finance. You just tend to create these predispositions in your mind as who they are and oh, if they're in finance, they're clearly like this, they're clearly like that, you know.

Speaker 1: 5:22

And if you don't have a job and you're job searching, you kind of feel like you tie the fact that you haven't been able to get one yet as a knock on your self-worth. And then there's also this whole issue around you want to find a job that you love and you're passionate about, that you're interested in, but you also want to make money to survive. So if you get an offer from a job that you don't really like, but no one else has given you an offer, it's so hard to be like I don't want to take this. But I kind of need to take this, because what if nothing else comes along? And it just feels like you're stuck in a box and I sympathize with that because I've been there, trust me. But then, even if you're not sure what you're passionate about, that could open a whole nother can of worms, because you might not actually know what you wanna do. And then don't even get me started.

Speaker 1: 6:06

The job hunt gets so much tougher If you don't know what you wanna do which, by the way, is so normal. Please don't feel badly if this is you, but if you have no idea what you wanna do yet and you're trying to search for jobs and you're looking for just jobs in different fields, it's just a whole another weight that's put on your back and then you instantly can feel behind through social media, through comparing yourself to friends, through not realizing what you want to do yet, which isn't a crime, but it's really hard. So the job search is difficult. What comes next in the process is the internet. The internet makes it so much worse. Okay, the internet will make you feel 10 times worse when you're on your job search.

Speaker 1: 6:49

This doesn't necessarily mean Instagram, but in this case we're talking LinkedIn. And if you guys don't have a LinkedIn account, let me help you understand that LinkedIn can be great for networking, but it can also be the worst social media platform ever known to man. And I'm saying this because on LinkedIn, you have free reign to basically brag about everything you do. On social media channels like Instagram, for example, yes, you can easily brag about what you do, but you can also get a lot more slack for that. You can also get a lot more hate for bragging, but on LinkedIn that's literally the whole point. So everyone is bragging about what they're going to do, what they, what they've achieved and anything that you achieve, from as little to like an open day or like a certificate for some online course to a new job you have to post about. So people are posting about their achievements and everyone's low-key, extremely fake, so everyone else is just commenting congratulations, well done on your new journey, like so well deserved. And I think on Instagram sometimes not everyone's going to comment on your post, you know, but everyone, whether they mean it or not, is going to be commenting on your LinkedIn being like well done, like such hard work, so well deserved. On your one hour certificate on learning how to use Excel, like literally, that is how it is and that can be great if you're the one posting.

Speaker 1: 8:11

But if you're job searching and you're looking through LinkedIn and you're looking at all of the posts that pop up from your friends, from people you know, from people your age and seeing what they're doing, that makes you feel behind if you are job searching. There's also so much on LinkedIn right now about entrepreneurs. There are so many young entrepreneurs who have started their businesses at like 23 and obviously it's great and they're amazing. But it can also make you feel behind and it's very hard not to compare yourself to others and how can you not when you see that? So I don't blame you if you are comparing yourself to others, especially if you're someone who's thinking one day I would like to start my own business, but you're thinking I need more experience. Now I'm not exactly sure what I want to do it in, but you're seeing other people starting their own businesses when they were five years younger than you, at like 20 or 19, and it makes you feel so behind.

Speaker 1: 9:02

Another thing with the linkedin with social media is people are extremely good at glamorizing quitting their jobs and leaving to go traveling. Go travel the world and find themselves and realize they're not here for the corporate life but also somehow create some extremely successful social media page from traveling the world. And honestly, that is just not realistic, because a lot of the time when you quit your job it's because it's not right for you and then you have to go on the job search again and it's exhausting. So there is this glamorization of quitting jobs and going traveling. Maybe if you're 45 and you feel like you need a career break, cool, but right now we're trying to get motivated and when we see stuff like that, it's just like, well, you had a job and I can't even I can't even get a job, like everyone's rejecting me. So I completely understand that. That is so much of what LinkedIn looks like, and then why would you want to go on there and network when that's what you're seeing?

Speaker 1: 9:58

Another point on the social media, but rather on Instagram than LinkedIn, is a lot of influencers at least on my feed who are making content creation and they're making it as their backup plan and they're working their nine to fives. And then this is their side hustle and you're just thinking, oh my gosh, how do you do it Like? How have you gained a following? How have you been able to post every day whilst also working a big corporate job or whatever it may be that you do? And then, no wonder, when you're even just trying to job search, that makes you feel so behind, because it's making you feel like everyone has these side hustles, everyone's doing everything and everyone's productive 24, bloody, seven hours of the day. So having content creation as your backup plan is not as easy as it seems Like they make it look so much easier.

Speaker 1: 10:54

Now we're going to get into the next most confusing and aggravating thing about the job hunt, and that is the advice. The advice that you're getting. That is confusing as hell. Honestly, I feel like you have so many people's voices in your mind telling you one thing and then a whole nother crew telling you the exact opposite, and you're like this is supposed to be comforting, because this is not helping making me feel good at all. So there are so many contradictions and when I was on the job hunt, thankfully I found something, but honestly, the amount of contradictions that I heard some of them include so many people would tell me follow your passion, follow what you like.

Speaker 1: 11:34

Don't just do something for the money, do it because you love it. You know you'll be able to enjoy your work that way. On the other hand, I also had people telling me just take anything. Take anything now, get the experience and you'll figure it out along the way. You'll figure out what you want to do when you just try something, whatever it may be, and if you don't like it, you can leave and you can try something else, and then you're eliminating what you don't like. Already one person's telling me to to follow my passion. Another person is telling me to just grab whatever I get. So how am I supposed to know who's right and which one is the right thing to do? Because obviously they both sound good and they both have their positives, but they also might not be as easy to do as they make it sound. Another contradiction honestly, this is just really a good therapy session for me because I'm letting out all of my anger from the job search stuff at the moment.

Speaker 1: 12:28

But another contradiction is people saying don't settle. Whether this may be salaries, whether this may be types of jobs or for a job that you don't like, just don't settle, ask for a higher salary. But then also, at the same time, when I got my first job, when I was thinking about accepting it, people were like you can't be that picky, because it's your first job, you have to take what you get. You have to start at the bottom of the barrel and you work your way up. So how, again, was I supposed to know or were we supposed to know which one to listen to? When we're young, we don't have enough experience yet to know for ourselves which one might be the right answer.

Speaker 1: 13:05

Another thing that I really struggled with when I was job searching earlier this year was the amount of networking that I had to do, because it's all well and good to apply and do as many applications as possible, but a lot of the time you could even get potential opportunities through your connections and that's why you need to grow your network. So I was trying to network or have a couple meetings a week. Sometimes when you're going to big networking events, there's a lot of people and it's exhausting to try and muster up the confidence to go and speak to a random person, especially when you've gone by yourself. But it's so hard to network when you're already spiraling because you already feel awful that you've been rejected a hundred times and you already feel awful that you don't know what you wanna do yet and then you have to muster up the courage to go and talk to someone and try and network with them. So on top of all of that you have the networking and for those who don't like networking, that's really really, really hard and it's very mentally draining.

Speaker 1: 14:00

And then you also get interview advice from people that just isn't realistic, telling you to do things that make you stand out. But you're thinking, why would I do that? Because that is so rogue and, yes, it might make me stand out. But what if they take that the wrong way? You know like some people might give you advice to be really arrogant or really cocky, because maybe you'll stand out and the interviewer will like that you have this confidence, but at the same time, the company could see that as absolutely just pure arrogance and be wiping you off of their system and terminate your interview process altogether.

Speaker 1: 14:34

I have experienced that. I've experienced a lot of people giving me advice that just doesn't really make sense. But one of my biggest pet peeves from advice that I've got back from interviews is where I've got to the final stages of some really, really great jobs that I really wanted and they tell me throughout the many, many interviews that they really liked me, that they really liked my CV and I was doing a great job and they really wanted me. And then I'd get to the last interview and I'd get time for feedback and they would say, oh, we really like you, but you just don't have enough experience yet or we were just looking for someone with more experience in this field. And how are you supposed to take advice from that? Because, of course, you can't really say anything because you don't want to be rude. But also, how are you supposed to have more experience if you've just come out of university or you've just left your first job or you've just started to try and make a headway in the corporate world or whichever industry you're trying to get into?

Speaker 1: 15:32

So, honestly, that comment, that piece of feedback, genuinely makes my spine crawl and makes me so livid, because it's also like if you knew that already, you would have known from the get-go, from the first interview, that I didn't have enough experience. But we also know that on this podcast, we're not going to leave when we just rant without coming out with the right solution. So, of course, now, now, do not fear guys, do not stress, because I am going to help, give you tips on how to cope if you are going through the job search, or if you've been through it already, or if you're going to go through it at some point soon. How to cope without losing it, without losing your mental, because I did and I have and I've experienced what needs to be done in order for that not to happen. So this is coming from pure experience and I honestly live by these tips now. So let's get into it. I like to call these my practical tips from the trenches and that is not an exaggeration, because it absolutely was the trenches in that time.

Speaker 1: 16:50

So I was job hunting for a little while in between my first job and now my upcoming second one, and I'm someone and I mentioned this before who really needs structure in their life like desperately. Otherwise my brain is like a war zone and it's just a disaster. So when you don't have a job that grounds your day, you need to create structure in your daily routine. So this means you need to set hours at a specific time in the day and a chunk for job hunting hours, but at the same time, you also need to make sure that you don't have job hunting as the one thing on your agenda for the entire day, because that's going to make you burn out, that's going to make you feel unproductive and that's not going to actually help you keep going. You need to make sure that you do other things in your day rather than just the job hunt, because that's it's just not gonna it's just not gonna work out. So maybe it's the morning that you dedicate the entire morning to job hunting and then the afternoon you do other things. Maybe that's admin, maybe that, maybe that's exercising, maybe that's networking.

Speaker 1: 17:55

Another tip I would say and I know that I've mentioned this before rejection isn't personal and I've learned that the hard way. But it can seriously feel like it is personal and it's such a nightmare sometimes, but it's not. And once you get over that and you realize that rejection isn't personal and these jobs aren't rejecting you because they don't think that you're a good human being. They just have so many people and they don't even mean to make you upset, like they try their best not to you will get over these rejections and be able to get through the job hunt much quicker if you realize that. Another tip which really helped me and I really think this is tied to self-love and being praising and not being too hard on yourself, because that actually isn't cool is celebrate the small wins when it comes to the job hunts, because you need these small wins and these celebrations to keep you going without feeling burnt out, without feeling rejection fatigue. So, for example, if you've fixed up your cv, if you've cleared it up, that's a win, that's a big win. If you've sent one application, that's a win, and I know you might feel like, okay, well, I didn't do five, I only did one. That's still a win, because applications can take ages.

Speaker 1: 19:10

My last tip, which is literally fundamental in order to help you on your job hunt journey, is create a support system. You really need a support system. I needed one so badly and I'm so lucky that I did have one. And when I say support system, I mean you need to have the friends around you who can check in with you, make sure you're doing okay, make sure that they're there if you need to have a rant about a specific interview that you had and this also could be family. But I would definitely have, like mentally, a couple of friends around you who you can check in with, but also who won't compare to you and who you won't compare to them, so that there isn't a competition between you and this friend. This friend is there to to help you through your job hunt and also listen to you, but not compare to you. Then, when you're feeling really down and questioning your self-worth because of a specific rejection, you know that you've got those friends to call up and they understand the situation and they can build you back up and remind you that you are absolutely worth and worthy of every one of these jobs. It just wasn't your day and it just wasn't something that was meant for you.

Speaker 1: 20:20

But honestly, despite everything I've just said, there is actually something that is really important that you need to realise throughout your job hunt it's not always negative. You are making progress, despite the rejections. You might not even realize it, and let me tell you why. Because there are tons of things that you learn during your job hunt. Firstly, you can learn so easily and so fast. If you're making lots of applications or doing interviews, you can learn what you don't want in a job. Even if you don't know what you want to do, you can sort of figure it out a little bit. You can make headway when you're doing your job hunt because you can learn from interviews what you don't want to do.

Speaker 1: 21:00

Number two, the dream jobs don't always feel so dreamy. You might want to be like an investment banker. That might sound, or have sounded, extremely ideal to you when you had left university and you were like I'm gonna be this corporate finance girl. But then this dreamy, dreamy job might not sound so dreamy once you actually learn a bit more about it and you start doing the job hunt and you realize that it might not be for you. Number three another thing you learn is that your worth is not tied to your job title. You will learn and you will see people who are doing the job that you thought you really wanted to do and you'll see them hate it. Or you'll see that no one actually judges your worth based on your job and those who do are just insecure. And when you get so many rejections you will realize that you have toughened up so much that your worth is beyond that and you know that you are capable. It is just it's not tied to your job title, I promise you.

Speaker 1: 22:01

Number four rejection is redirection, and I know that it's really hard to hear that when you're getting rejected all the time and you're like no, rejection means hell, rejection means failure, rejection means I'm giving up. Nope, it actually doesn't. It means redirection and it might be really hard to actually redirect yourself. But you, if you look back throughout your job search, your job hunt situation, you have probably ended up going towards a job that you didn't envisage you going into when you started the job hunt, and that's because you were redirected to the right place. Even if it sounds like a cliche, guys, think about it. It is true. I have absolutely been redirected and I am so grateful because I wouldn't have known this unless I had really gone out there and seen what was around, what I could apply to and what was meant for me.

Speaker 1: 22:51

Number five you learn something which is so valuable from job hunting and that is the art of being uncomfortable but still growing at the same time. So the job hunt is extremely uncomfortable and you are getting rejected. You are not making money necessarily, you're comparing yourself to others and you're struggling to understand what you want to do in your life, but you are growing at the same time because you are getting more resilience through these rejections. You're getting stronger in knowing your self-worth and not letting it tie to your job or what you're looking for, and you will also know that you are getting closer to what you're actually meant to be doing. You are growing and this skill you can transfer to every single area of life, because it's just grit. It's grit that you don't learn when you don't, when you don't get tons of rejections. So, in the in a, these rejections are making you so tough in a good way.

Speaker 1: 23:50

Okay, guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I really felt like I needed to have my vent and I think that's made pretty clear, but also I really felt like those who have been through the job hunt or who are going through it right now. This is something that really will help you, and I just wanted to shed some light on that and help you guys. So please let me know if this is helpful, but I want you to know, beyond everything, that you're not behind. This phase of your job hunt is temporary. It may not feel that, but it is, and, like I always say, you are doing much better than you think. Take a moment to reflect and realize that you are much better than you were a couple months ago. And my last piece of advice to you is that you don't need a title like a job title, in order to be validated, in order to be worthy, you don't need a LinkedIn update to be enough, and you just need to keep showing up. You showing up every day is more than enough.

Speaker 1: 24:51

So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and I hope that I've been helpful to at least one of you guys this week. And, honestly, if you haven't done the job hunt yet, or you already have a job, you'll at least be able to relate with how difficult it's been when you were trying to look for this job, or you can save this episode and listen to it later for when you're about to start your job hunt. But I'm going to ask you one favor before you go share this with a friend who is on their job hunt right now. I feel like it might be really comforting for them to hear someone who's been through the same thing, and let me know if you enjoyed it Instagram, dm me or leave a comment in the show notes. I would absolutely love to hear if you guys have had any other issues or specific things that you want to rant about when it comes to the job hunt. Please let me know. I shall see you loves next wednesday. Bye. Wednesday Bye.