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Taking Care of Your Mental Health whilst Job Hunting

09-10-2020
Job seeker advice

Looking after your mental health has never been more important; 2020 has thrown some huge challenges at all of us and we have seen the way of life we all know change beyond recognition. The impact of lockdown was felt by every single person in the UK and we shared our tips on how best to look after your mental health throughout this period.

We know that there are new hurdles along the way for some of you in the Motor Trade, furlough is coming to an end and there is uncertainty for those of you who have yet to return to work and that some of you have faced, or may be facing, redundancy.

Stress and Anxiety are a perfectly normal response to this sort of situation and as today is World Mental Health Day we thought it would be good to share our tips and advice on how to Maintain your Mental Health whilst searching for a new Automotive Job.

Be Strategic about your Job Search

It is easy to click apply on 100s of jobs online and just wait and see what sticks. This can however zap your energy and can be quite demoralising. It is a candidate-rich market at the moment so you need your application to stand out.

Take some time to research a company before applying, is this a company you would like to work for? Do their values align with your own? How can you align your experience with the company’s needs?

If you tailor your CV and Covering Letter for each role, you will likely see a response, rather than just being left in the dark and not knowing what went wrong.

Set Goals you can easily Achieve.

Whilst your ultimate goal will be to find that new job, sadly the time frame it takes to achieve this may be out of your control.

Instead, look at what you need to do to get to where you want to be. If you break down the whole process into small manageable goals, you will find the process is less heavy on your shoulders.

Of course, these goals do need to be kept manageable: ‘Spend 1 hour researching the company and putting together a cover letter’ or ‘Spend 2 hours preparing for my upcoming interview’ rather than ‘Apply for every job within a 10mile radius of my house’. If you add some structure into searching for a new role, that won’t leave you feeling exhausted, you can prevent your job search from bleeding into your everyday life.

Take a Break!!

Whilst you may consider finding a job the most important thing right now, it’s important to pace yourself.

Lining up as many interviews into a short period of time, or spending all day on job boards looking for something new to appear may appear the best strategy, but if you aren’t already, you may soon start feeling unmotivated or burnt out, and this will come across when you are applying and/or interviewed.

Take time out from your job search, rest and spend times with your friends and family. This links closely with the above tip – make sure the job search doesn’t consume you. Looking for a new job can make you feel pretty isolated at times, so make sure you are prioritising your self and not let it consume you.

Ask for help!

Most people in their lifetime will at some point or another found themselves looking for a new job, be this through choice or not, so they can be a great resource for you to tap into and see what they did to land themselves a new job.

It could be really simple from asking them to review or proofread your CV and/or Cover Letter through to throwing some interview questions at you to help you prepare yourself for this part of the job-seeking process.

We at Perfect Placement have helped over 30,000 people find new jobs since we first began. We know how to make your CV shine, we can help you prepare for interviews and can often give you a good bit of inside knowledge into our clients to set you apart from the crowd.

Help doesn’t necessarily need to mean Help! It could just be meeting somebody for a coffee to have a bit of a vent about the whole process. Talking (or venting) about it can be very soothing and help alleviate some of the pressure you are putting on yourself.

Don’t Beat Yourself Up

For some, it may be tough to find a new job. Whilst we aren’t telling you to “Think Positive and Positive Things will happen” we are telling you that things may go wrong and that’s ok!

Perhaps you didn’t interview as well as you’d hoped, or you haven’t had any positive responses from your applications, that’s OK! It will happen, not as quickly as you’d like, but you will get there. Try to look at things objectively and think about how you could have answered that question better or what you could add to your cover letter.

We know this is easier said than done, make sure you talk things through with somebody, this will help to ease some of the pressure you are placing yourself under.

Remember, you aren’t alone!

However hard you are finding things, it won’t be like this forever, rely on your friends, family, neighbours, ex-colleagues, recruitment agency etc etc etc for support. You can get through this.

We aren’t in any way professing to be experts in mental health, these are just some ideas from our own experiences and from our understanding of the process of searching for jobs, we hope that you have found this helpful.

If you are struggling with your Mental Health and you work within the Motor Trade, be sure to get in touch with Ben – Support for Life. Their team of experts will be well suited to assist you with looking after your mental health and wellbeing.