Pacing yourself is crucial for finding a job, and setting appropriate goals is the best way to ensure that you have a workable pace.
The job hunt is more like a marathon than a sprint, but at the beginning many encounter a strong temptation to jump in headfirst with a full sprint. Like the Hare in Aesop’s Fable, they rush into the process, expecting a quick turnaround in a few days or weeks, if only they can complete everything they have to.
Sometimes this works and they do find a job, and if so, more power to you. But, frequently this simply exhausts the person after the initial transition sets in. You cannot sprint your way through a marathon but must learn to pace yourself, lest you deplete critical energy during your initial charge.
On the other extreme, the job hunt seems uniquely set up to enable procrastination. Fixing your resume, reaching out to someone, filling out that online job application, etc. are important but frequently have undefined deadlines, meaning that you can always put it off until tomorrow. This fact coupled with the emotional energy needed to put oneself out there means that many procrastinate on key activities. This can include the exhausted sprinters who, after the initial high of their sprint crashes, often settle into an equally ineffective procrastination.
Making and keeping effective goals is the answer to both pitfalls. For sprinters, well-paced goals channel your initial energy into something productive while pacing yourself in the long run, and for procrastinators, daily and weekly goals keep you productive now at chipping away the necessary long-term complex tasks.
What I Do
So then, how do you set proper goals for the job search? Here is a breakdown of how I typically set goals:
I break down what I need to do into a series of tasks: networking/connecting with people, submitting job applications online, working on my resumes and cover letters, etc. (I will discuss the importance of and break down how to do each these in more detail in later articles.)
For quantifiably measurable tasks, like connecting with people and applying to jobs, I set a reasonable weekly goal like the following:
| Reach out to 20 people a week, a.k.a. 4 people a day during the week (taking the weekends off) |
| Apply to 12 jobs a week, a.k.a. 3 a day during the week |
Now, I prioritize reaching out to people over submitting online applications, because I have found networking to lead to more jobs interviews than submitting online applications, something I will discuss in more detail in a future article.
For qualitatively measurable tasks, like perfecting my resumes and cover letters, I generally set a certain amount of time per day/week to work on until that task is complete. For example, I might work on my resume for 25 minutes a day, for example, until the version I have for each type of job is of the quality I desire. This allows me to slowly chip away at the task.
The point of these goals is to give me the daily and weekly impetus I need to work through a much more complicated task. In the job search, there will be many necessary activities that I can always put off until tomorrow, which means that if I am not careful, I will put them off indefinitely.
By setting goals, I break down each complex task into smaller, manageable and tangible parts that I can slowly chip away at every day. Editing for 25 minutes or reaching out to 4 people is not that difficult, overwhelming, or time-consuming to complete right now, so every day I can easily manage it. The effects of these smaller parts are small at first, but over the course of a few weeks, they snowball into tackling the wider task/goal.
Goal Setting Yourself
So, how do you set reasonable goals, then? Well, the details of the goals you make are up to you and what you can handle given your schedule.
First, however, I would recommend you list out all the tasks you need to complete in order to find a job. For me, in the example above, that was networking, submitting online applications, and writing resumes and cover letters. What do you need to do?
Searching for jobs and bettering one’s application (which these three activities are examples of) are two common types of activities that job seekers must perform, so they are a good place to start. Later articles in this series will discuss several potential activities to consider in later articles as well.
After mapping out what you need to do, I would recommend the following criteria for thinking through the process:
| 1. Sufficiency: Give yourself enough time to work on the given task each day to slowly chip away at it overtime. (For example, reaching out to 1 person a day would not enable me to complete my overall networking task quick enough, but 4 people a day could.) |
| 2. Completable: At the same time, make sure your daily goal is completable each day. (For example, reaching out to 20 people a day would be too high for me, given my schedule, but 4 people a day I have found perfectly doable even on hard days) |
| 3. Resting and Reevaluating: Officially include time to rest from your goals and reevaluate what is working and not working about them. (Notice I finished all my weekly goals during the week and did not work during the weekend. This both allowed me time to rest and recuperate from the job hunt and gave me space to disengage for a few days to reassess my goal setting. One should remove oneself from one’s goal setting rhythm periodically, because such space allows you to reassess whether that rhythm is working. It is smart to graft such breaks officially into your goals, and for many people, weekends for a natural time to do that. Do it when it makes the most sense for you, though.) |
- Sufficiency: Give yourself enough time to work on the given task each day to slowly chip away at it overtime.
(For example, reaching out to 1 person a day would not enable me to complete my overall networking task quick enough, but 4 people a day could.)
2. Completable: At the same time, make sure your daily goal is completable each day.
(For example, reaching out to 20 people a day would be too high for me, given my schedule, but 4 people a day I have found perfectly doable even on hard days.)
3. Resting and Reevaluating: Officially include time to rest from your goals and reevaluate what is working and not working about them.
(Notice I finished all my weekly goals during the week and did not work during the weekend. This both allowed me time to rest and recuperate from the job hunt and gave me space to disengage for a few days to reassess my goal setting. One should remove oneself from one’s goal setting rhythm periodically, because such space allows you to reassess whether that rhythm is working. It is smart to graft such breaks officially into your goals, and for many people, weekends for a natural time to do that. Do it when it makes the most sense for you, though.)
Conclusion
The job hunt is often a marathon, taking several months, so setting sufficient yet completable goals with adequate rest is the most important single activity you can do to pace yourself.
Goal setting prevents you both from starting out sprinting way faster than you should and thus just tiring yourself out in the long run, and from procrastinating on going forward at all.
Finding a job is doable but prepare yourself. It can be a long journey, so you need to treat it as such.
Photo Credit #1: Shannon McGee at https://www.flickr.com/photos/shan213/5860844312/
Photo Credit #2: OpenClipart-Vectorsat https://pixabay.com/vectors/checklist-task-to-do-list-plan-1295319/
Photo Credit #3: gerart at https://pixabay.com/photos/students-board-drawing-learn-start-4190327/
Photo Credit #4: Markus Winkler at https://unsplash.com/photos/LNzuOK1GxRU