Overcome fear of searching for a new career

What is holding you back from trying to find a new career?

For some individuals, the job hunting process itself seems overwhelming. That may be the case for you if any of the statements below sound familiar:

• I have been in my job for such a long time, I don’t know where to start.
• I don’t know what I want to do.
• I haven’t updated my resume in 10 years.
• The last time I searched for a job, I sent resumes through the mail!

The overwhelming feeling that comes from not knowing is enough to keep many people in their current job. Fear of the unknown can also manifest when you aren’t sure how to search for a job or what types of careers you can do.

Overcome the Fear of Finding a New Career

What can you do to alleviate these fears? Here are some simple but powerful steps that can help:

• Take stock of what you do know. Write down specifically what you are looking to accomplish (e.g. revise my resume, understand what networking groups I need to join, learn what job search sites I should visit).
• Research the items you listed above. Are there free resources, articles, blogs or other credible resources you can use to answer your questions and accomplish those goals?
• Take it one step at a time. If you are looking to accomplish many goals, you may become overwhelmed with how much you need to do. Start by accomplishing the first step and then build from there. If you try to tackle too many tasks at once, you may end up not completing any of them.

One Step at a Time

Breaking your tasks down into smaller chunks is one of the most helpful exercises for getting started. If your task is ‘revise my resume’, the task may seem too overwhelming to do. If you break it up into several steps, you may accomplish it faster. For example, break down that task to a list like this:

• Find my resume
• Assess what is missing and create list of what I need to update
• Add in my current experience into the resume.

Doing this will make your goal of revising your resume seem more manageable. You can tackle one or two of those tasks each day and make steady progress rather than trying to tackle the entire resume in one shot.

Job searching, career changes, and career management can seem overwhelming. This is especially true if you are not familiar with current career search tools and processes. Hopefully the steps above calm some of those fears. If you have used other techniques, please share them in the comments section below!