Just when you climb one mountain, another appears

You were on cruise-control. Everything was fine; you were making decent money; you liked your job; you liked your boss and co-workers. You figured you were set.

And then it happened. Seemingly in an instant, your life took a drastic turn. You didn’t work there anymore. You didn’t have a job. You didn’t have an income. You didn’t have a purpose, a reason for getting up in the morning. How were you going to pay your bills?

One thing was certain. Your life was never going to be the same.

After the shock wore off, you picked yourself up and committed yourself to finding another job. But suddenly, another specter appeared. Everything you remembered about looking for a job (from maybe 20 years or more ago) didn’t apply anymore.

Now there was LinkedIn and you had to learn the ins and outs of how to deal with that. Then there were the Automated Tracking Systems that screened you out of contention for jobs with no human eyes viewing your resume. And you thought dealing with LinkedIn was difficult. Add to that, dealing with an emerging millenial workforce and all that technology. Sheesh!

Then there were the easy parts. Like learning how to network all over again. Like learning how to conduct yourself during a video interview.

But you’re tough. You’re resilient. You can overcome those obstacles. But just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, this bomb drops. It’s called Covid-19 and the job search landscape is grotesquely transformed again. How can you network when you’re confined to your home and all the places where you would go to network (i.e. bars and restaurants, and even libraries) are all closed? Layer skyrocketing unemployment on top of all that and you’re back to square one.

Is it ever going to stop?

No one can predict the future. No one. But we do have history on our side and history says that what goes up, must come down. As bad as things may seem today, believe or not Mr. Ripley, they will get better. And you’ll master this new job seeking world, just as you conquered the past.