This is part of our series on Coronavirus unemployment. If you missed part one start here and check back soon for additional posts.
When I was laid off in 2015 I found out via text message on a Sunday night. I wanted to jump right to my laptop and start filling out applications, but my now husband made me promise to wait. “Take a few days, a week, whatever you need, give yourself a break.” He told me to take the dog to the park, go to the museums, sit in a coffee shop and read, just take some space for a few days. When he lost his job a few years later we were actually already on vacation, but he said the same thing, “when we get home I’m going to take a week and be mad about this”.
That’s probably the best bit of job advice I have right now. Take a break. Trust me on this, you need a few days. You need some time to process, to grieve, to worry, to be angry. You have to feel all of those things to start moving on in a healthy way. Allow yourself a set amount of time, whatever seems reasonable to you, three days, five days, a week, and do not job search. Decide to take that time and actually take it without any guilt about what you aren’t doing right now. Take walks, read that book that’s been on your shelf forever, let yourself sleep in, play video games, do a coloring book, whatever you want. The goal here is clearing your head, as much as that’s possible right now. Don’t watch the news all day, I promise it’s not changing and if it does, someone will let you know. Try to stay off of social media too, seeing others work from home won’t make you feel better, and will just reinforce some of the angry and hurt feelings. This break is so important because trying to job search before you’ve taken some time to clear your head is both really difficult, and usually really unproductive. Job searching requires your focus and dedication, two things that most people who’ve been recently laid off need a few days to rediscover.
Managing expectations is also a huge part of caring for your mental health in unemployment, especially this particular kind of unemployment. Everyone wants to know how long this will last and what hiring will look like when it’s over, but we’re all in uncharted territory here. I have no idea how many companies will move to rehire workers immediately, and how many will take their time and bring employees back slowly through the fall and winter. My professional opinion is that things will tend toward the later, and that’s where I would set your expectations. I know that doesn’t seem like a very helpful thought, but I truly don’t mean for it to be a negative thing. By getting comfortable with the idea now, that your job search may take longer than you want, you can free yourself up from some of the feelings of guilt and failure that inevitably sink in later. You knew this would be hard, and you were ready for that. At the same time, expecting this to be a difficult search from the beginning means you know right now that you’ll have to work hard. For all the things we don’t know right now, I do know one thing for sure - the first people to find jobs will be the ones working hardest to find them.
Setting boundaries is an equally important part of protecting your mental health in a job search. Boundaries can mean a lot of different things - how much time you spend on your job search every day, how much time you’ll spend talking about your job search with other people, and how much you’ll share with those people. You know you best, for some people having an outlet and sharing every aspect is super important, for other people discussing their job search in depth, even with their spouse or best friends, just makes them feel more anxious. Of course the people closest to you will want to help and will want to know how it’s going, just realize that it’s okay to let them know when you don’t want to talk about it any more. As far as your personal boundaries, I would decide now on some specific blocks of time you want to allocate to job searching. Especially now, when none of us are really on any particular schedule, it’s easy to let your days turn into long stretches in front of the screen where nothing really happens. Decide when you’re most “on” and block a few 2-3 hour stretches during that time to commit to working on the job search. Outside of those times, allow yourself to do other things. Imposing some time boundaries will help give you feelings of a deadline and deliverables, but also make sure you don’t feel guilty about taking time to walk the dog, read a book, or whatever else helps you decompress.
Lastly, go easy on yourself. This is a really hard and scary time and a lot of things are really uncertain. You’ll have bad days or bad moments, that’s to be expected and it’s 100% okay.