What I wish I’d known about unemployment
Have you ever watched a friend spend months unemployed?
Maybe they seem a little too relaxed for your liking, as if maybe they’re not panicking the appropriate amount of panic, what with their “coaching their kid’s softball team” and “going for leisurely walks” and “meeting friends for dinner.”
I have definitely felt un-chill about their chill. I want to tell them, with love of course: panic.
But now, as a recently, unexpectedly laid-off graphic designer/writer, I kinda get it. They — we — are indeed freaked out. (Especially if they are, hypothetically, maybe a single parent with no family nearby and a steep mortgage in an expensive town on the verge of paying for college.)
Pssst: They’re faking it. Your job-seeking friends are keenly aware employers can smell desperation a mile away. They need to stay in a confident headspace. They need to act chill, in order to feel chill, in order to convey chill to people handing out jobs. Chill gets jobs. Routine feels chill. Everything is fine. Panic is your enemy. Shove it down.
I’m now five months into not-very-funemployment, and here’s what I wish someone explained to me:
1. You’re going to find a job. You just are. If you’re a halfway intelligent person with decent social skills who has successfully held down skilled jobs in the past, someone will employ you.
Whether it’s a step forward or backward in salary/seniority, eh, who knows. But you will get back on track, and this will be a blip in the overall scheme of your career. Listen to your friends when they tell you it’ll work out, even though their blind faith seems downright silly and uninformed. They are right, and your visions of being a former creative director shaking a tin can for spare nickels at the commuter rail station are wrong. I know everything feels scary and out of control, but it’s imperative that you trust the process.
More specifically, here’s how it’s going to go: You’re going to embark on this journey, confident in your skills and successful track record, with a slick new resume and portfolio. Somehow, rudely, a whole lot of companies are not going to want to hire you. And I mean a lot. (Eventually one will.) You will get 10, 20, 30 rejection emails to every lukewarm interview request. For reasons you never get to know. You’ll get no’s when you’re pretty convinced it’s a match made in job heaven and you bonded with the hiring manager over true crime podcasts. You’ll get moved to the next stage when you’re pretty sure you’re not a great fit and rambled in the interview. Six interview rounds in, hypoethetically, the HR person will quietly tell you she “wouldn’t at all be surprised if you got the job,” only to email you the next week that you didn’t. The process humbles you until you submit to the idea that you’re not in charge. It’s so personal… except that it’s not. You won’t make sense of it. Ride the waves. Go with the yeses. Stay the course.
2. The further along you are in your career, the longer it’ll take you to find a new role. If you’re 20 years in, count on at least six months. I don’t make the rules. I entered the job market HAVING JUST WON AN AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN MY DIVISION thankyouverymuch, thinking I’d be able to flip off my former employer with a new offer in like 2 1/2 weeks and bank all my severance to really stick it to them. I was really counting on a very fresh flip-off. Sigh. In summary, finding a new gig is almost certainly going to take you way longer than you anticipate, and much longer than you’re comfortable with.
3. As in relationships, the speed at which you get matched up with your new job is not in direct correlation with your worth as a candidate. (Even as I write this, I 82% believe myself, while 18% of me is quietly convinced I’m inherently unhirable.) But look. Did your high school classmates get married in order of awesomeness? No. It’s dumb luck. It’s almost impossible not to take all the rejection you’re facing personally, every day with the “We really appreciate your application. Unfortunately…” emails. But everyone is just on a different timeline, waiting for their turn, period. Your job right now, quite literally, is to keep plugging away until such time as you don’t have to anymore.
4. Don’t get too wrapped up in what kind of job market it is, what time of year it is. Who cares, buddy. This is the market you’re in. Head down, do what you need to do. The “bonding” conversations I’ve had with fellow unemployed peeps about “it’s like the Sahara desert out there!” have felt entirely unhelpful and stomach-churny. Remember you don’t need a whole demographic of jobs; you need one.
5. Similarly, spend approximately zero time bemoaning your age or career stage. Biases sure are real, but you can’t change these things about yourself so just plow forward until you find someone who’s buying what you’re selling (then work to change the biases from inside the system). And remember, they’re not rejecting you, for they do not know you. They’re rejecting your candidacy for a certain role based on expectations and reasons you will never be privy to, so don’t obsess. They want an 8-sided polygon, and you have 9. Or to lift a deep quote from Instagram, “May we stop seeing ourselves through the eyes of people that never really saw us.”
6. Don’t let yourself get excited about a job until you’ve made it past the HR screening. Don’t map out your commute, don’t do an office drive-by, don’t share the listing with all your friends. (See also: the parallel dating app rule of “Don’t enter the dude’s number in your phone until you’ve successfully met up for coffee IRL and expressed mutual further interest.”) I can’t tell you how many times HR people have been SO excited about me for a role, wink-wink you’ve got this in the bag, I’m pretty sure it’s a done deal… and then the hiring managers are “meh.” Or maybe hypothetically, in one case the hiring manager might say, “I’m actually not sure what the HR person saw here, I don’t think this is a fit.” (First of all, how dare you; second of all, wait, do I kind of like real-time feedback instead of being ghosted mysteriously? I think maybe I do! Hurts so good.) HR people’s enthusiasm, as infectiously good as it feels, does not equal a job offer, often not even a second interview. Please waste less energy than I have being swept up in HR fervor.
7. If you have problems with the unemployment system, like hypothetically you get a scary red exclamation point of doom next to your claim online informing you that there’s a problem, but that it’s actually in fact kind of a secret what’s wrong… email your local representatives. While it’s impossible for us gen-pop to reach a human there, they have a secret bat-phone and can sort things out quickly for you. Literally, who knew.
8. Nod and smile to the well-meaning friends who say, “Hopefully this can be a time of rest for you, and really examining your passions.” Very few of us have that luxury. I’m not working for funsies here, Sharon. Yes I’ve had some slow days, but I haven’t felt “at rest” for one second of unemployment, nor have I seen it as a chance to rethink what feeds my soul. Because I’m too worried about feeding my kid. Which leads me to…
9. Creative energy may not be flowing during this time for you. That’s ok. Maybe you picture learning Mandarin, finding your inner Revolutionary War recreationist, perfecting watercolor landscapes, being so productive and use the time “off” so well. That’s giving… I don’t know, sabbatical vibes? Unemployment is stressful with no known end in sight and for me that has not encouraged any hobbies other than desperation-snacking and the related 3am indigestion… oh and the insidious phone game, Blockudoku. Productivity can go screw. Much like early Covid when we had so much time and could theoretically have taught ourselves trigonometry but instead watched Great British Baking Show 6 hours a day and failed to change our undies… your body and brain are in fight-or-flight mode. Be nice to them. (Note to self, Erin: This may upend your theory about how, on the off-chance you’re sent to prison, you’d use it as a time to really focus on getting jacked.)
10. Job scams. Didn’t know these were a thing but I’ve encountered a handful of them. If a recruiter or employer is trying to move too fast, if they’re trying to circumvent a regular old phone interview with an online form or something weird… if they’re not listening to you or contradicting themselves or calling you repeatedly… trust your gut, buy yourself some time, google, run it by cynical friends, and then maybe ghost. Even if they “represent Microsoft.” I don’t understand what their angle is (a week of work and no paycheck? Your personal info? Weirdos. Knock it off.) Anyway, no one warned me about this but it’s a thing so if it’s feeling gross it’s probably gross.
11. Lastly, as brutal as this process is for you, it’s also real hard on your support network (and I sure hope you have a good one). My layoff has transpired fairly early on in a dating relationship, maybe a little sooner than I’d have liked for him to see me down on my luck. He’s been supportive and great, and I know it’s also been hard for him and my other people to be on the roller coaster with me, getting co-excited about leads that fizzle out, co-agonizing about how much of a pay cut to take, co-weighing the mental costs of a sucktacular commute. Their job is not easy: A pep talk can quickly veer into pity; sending a job listing can easily come off as patronizing. Your needs as the jobless person change from one minute to the next, making you a terrifying moving target to support. As you are able, communicate your needs clearly, and be mindful of how much of your internal sludge you’re inadvertently placing on their well-meaning, worried shoulders.
Good luck out there! Remember there’s a weird system of turns, and I don’t understand it, but I know yours is coming.
