I think graduating in the spring of 2009, at the height of a recession, left me and my peers with a warped sense of our value.
When I graduated college I was ready to work. I was ready to put my time in at the bottom of an organization. I just wanted to be supporting a mission that I believed in. I was open to lots of causes including sexual and reproductive health, social justice, democracy, education and teaching, hunger and food insecurity—need I go on? (For college readers or recent grads, I think it is a good thing if you are interested in lots of different causes and are open to going towards roles that sound interesting even if they are not linearly connected to what you studied.)
It took me 6 months to get a job after college. For 2 months I applied to jobs everyday. I networked. I strategized about how to get a job when it seemed like everywhere I turned companies were having hiring freezes. I got frustrated. I felt down. I started losing my confidence that I had something to offer a company. I moved cities to take a poorly paid internship that turned into a job 4 months later.
https://unsplash.com/@fredmarriage (desk with computer, lamp and books)
Here’s the thing: I think those months of not finding a job right after school have made a big impact on every one of my career junctures thereafter. Since then I’ve had 2 major moments when I was job seeking. One was 2 years after that first job, and one was 5 years after that, once I had moved into management. In both cases I had more experience than I had the prior time I was job seeking. And while intellectually my brain knew to be going for jobs at a higher level, there was a part of me that had to remind myself that I was not in the place I was when I was last job seeking. I am smarter, more experienced, have more wisdom, and I offer more value to a company. This is true whether or not I had been moving up the ladder—even if I had been making a lateral move, I will always be more knowledgeable and seasoned than I was before. And this is true for you, too. Experience has this ability to only add to our value, not stagnate it.
If you’re preparing for or actively in the mode of getting a new job, consider whether or not you are still thinking of yourself as you did during your last career juncture—or if you are owning all that you have acquired since that time and using it to your advantage.
For more healthy perspective-shifting about getting a new job, check out my other posts here.