New Year, New Job: Managing Your Mental Health While Job Searching

BY KYLE ELLIOTT

The new year is often a time of reflection, introspection, and contemplation. It is also a time of dreaming, goal setting, and visualizing your future self. As a career coach, one of the most common New Year’s resolutions I hear is “Land a new job.”

Looking for a new job can be a stress-inducing process. The global COVID-19 pandemic and Great Resignation have made the process of job searching more nuanced and stressful than ever before.

What are the best ways to protect your mental health while job searching? How do you establish healthy job search boundaries? What should you keep in mind if you are job searching while living with a mental health condition?

3 Ways To Manage Your Mental Health When Looking For A New Job

Below are three ways to manage your mental health if you are looking for a new job this year.

1. Set realistic yet flexible goals for your job search.

Navigating the job search as someone with a mental health condition requires considerable patience, resilience, and flexibility. Subsequently, you want to begin by setting realistic and malleable job search goals. Additionally, you want to stay open to your goals changing as you navigate today’s modern job market. There are two goals I regularly encourage my career coaching clients to reflect on as they begin their job searches and determine how they will measure success:

• How many roles will I apply to each week?
• How many people will I network with each week?

As you reflect on these goals, you will notice I did not include landing a certain number of interviews, for instance. Instead, I focus on what you have control over during the job search. This prevents you from relying on outside forces to measure your job search success.

2. Establish healthy boundaries for your job search.

Next, you want to establish boundaries for your job search. For those of us living with mental health conditions, healthy boundaries are of extra importance as they help us preserve our mental health. Here are a few boundary questions you may consider during your job search:

• How much will I share on my LinkedIn profile and other career documents?
• What dates and times will I make myself available for networking calls and job interviews?
• Will I disclose my mental health condition during the job search?

Remember that establishing healthy boundaries also applies to yourself. Here are a few questions to ask yourself as you launch your job search:

• What will my weekly job search schedule look like?
• How many hours per day or week will I commit to my job search?
• When and how often will I check my email?

Keep in mind that your boundaries will likely change as you navigate the job search. Be open to your boundaries changing while still staying true to yourself and your values.

3. Create a mental health self-care plan.

Finally, the job search can undoubtedly be draining for your mental health. As a result, you may wish to develop a self-care plan to support your mental health and well-being during the job search. I encourage you to ask yourself these questions as you implement your job search self-care system:  

• How will I celebrate my smaller wins, such as landing a networking conversation or job interview, throughout my job search?
• Who from my support system can I count on to support me with my job search?
• What self-care resources will I use to protect my mental health during the job search?

These questions are just a start as you kick-start your job search. Know that looking for a new job takes considerable time, energy, and effort. You’ve got this!

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Kyle Elliott is the founder and career coach behind CaffeinatedKyle.com. His goal is simple – to help people find jobs they LOVE (or at least tolerate). As a queer person, male sexual assault survivor, and someone living with mental health conditions, Kyle is proud to get to use his voice and platform to help others share their stories, get help, and achieve recovery. He is an official member of the invitation-only Forbes Coaches Council, a member of the Gay Coaches Alliance, and a Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES). You can connect with Kyle at CaffeinatedKyle.com or on Instagram @CaffeinatedKyle.