As I write this, it's late-2024 and the job market is tough for jobseekers. If one finds a job within three months, they're considered lucky. Some folks go 2-3 times longer in-between jobs. If you're on this boat, break a leg!🫠

If you're not actively seeking a job, here's a thing that helped me go from "well this market sucks" to "welp, job seeking is my full-time job now, the only way out is through":

I started warming up my professional network when things got spooky at my current job.

Caveat, I could have done even more than I did. Despite not taking more steps, the simple act of thinking through "what would I do if the worst happened and my job disappeared?" put me one step ahead, and I was a little more calm after my job did disappear.

1. The network is the work

A strong, active professional network is the most important tool in this scenario. This is true whether the job market favors job-seekers or employers.

Especially when seeking a job without one in-hand, people are happy to respond and help out. Fifteen minutes of writing and responding to messages could kick-start the process for your next job.

Some helpful questions I asked myself in contemplating how to warm my network back up:

2. Take a stroll down accomplishments lane

Another easy thing to do is get (back) in the resumé writing mindset. That is, the self-promotion mindset where you're talking about all the things you've done, how great they were, putting numbers to how much they improved customer outcomes, and generally putting maximum shine on your work.

This is the point where I wish I had kept a good brag doc.

In lieu of a record kept in the moment, I took out some stickies and wrote out what I'd done in each of the last 6+ years at work. The goal here was to shake the dust from my brain and remember all the cool projects we shipped, excellent people I'd worked with, and improvements I'd made across the board. Keep in mind, no feat is too small and the sequence of projects doesn't matter much! I'm only getting in the groove here. The two-ish page limit on practical resumés is forces compressing this list later.

Don't feel bad about taking time to do this. At any high-functioning organization with a performance management cycle, what you're doing here looks exactly like what you'd do for your regular performance review ceremony. Two birds, one stone!

2a. There must be 50 ways to write your resumé

An updated resumé is a pre-requisite. I'm not (yet!) so internet-famous that I can get by without one. I didn't start rewriting my resumé right off the bat. Instead, I dusted it off and considered how I'd change it when the time came that I needed it.

Writing about oneself is challenging. It feels awkward, like something one is supposed to avoid. A few insights helped me here:

3. One job is plenty

Looking for a new job is an exhausting endeavor. Iterating on resumés, tweaking LinkedIn profiles, and updating online presence consumes a lot of time and emotional energy. That's not to mention actually finding promising jobs, customizing your resumé to suit the job descriptions, filling in application tracking system forms, responding to leads, and scheduling of interviews. Phew!

If you can avoid it, don't seek a new job whilst trying to hold down another one. Especially one that has "gone spooky". Granted, there's a lot of luck and privilege wrapped up in that advice!

If your luck affords it, make the search for one's next full-time job a full-time job. That is, give yourself a few month sabbatical to recharge and focus on the job search. Granted, don't take this route in a market that heavily favors employers and make sure your savings are topped off in case of surprises.

All this said, preparing for seeking a job is not the same as seeking a job. It took me longer than I'd have liked to realize this. Actively seeking a job, for me, looks more like marketing and sales than building or leading. It's playing a "numbers game": the more people you network with and the more jobs you apply for, the better. Thinking through how I would execute that helped!

But there was a hump I had to get over, entirely in my head, about actively/explicitly putting myself out there. Some social barriers I had to let go of, like not "reaching out" to folks via email or LinkedIn. Doing sales-y things, it's a big growth area for me. 🙃

Finally, a thing I'm learning about this most-difficult job search of my career: every step on the job search is one step closer to finding that job.

If you find yourself actively seeking a job, or merely feeling the spider-sense tingle about your current role, good luck! I hope this helped.