Happy Halloween from OITE! Today is a day for tricks, treats and all things spooky. While we hope you will enjoy the spirit of this holiday in your personal life, we also invite you to think about your professional life and what part of the job search scares you. Job searching can feel like navigating your way through a haunted house – it can be riddled with false doors, creepy detours, and hair-raising events. As proof of this, read some Job Search Horror Stories as shared by OITE staff. Many questions can come up during a job search: What in your professional past, if anything, haunts you? How spooked are you by networking? What eerily hard questions have you received during an interview? How frightened are you about finding the perfect job? The questions and doubts that arise during a job search are very common. You are opening yourself up to new opportunities, which is often synonymous with change. Plus, you are putting yourself and your professional accomplishments out into the world for consideration. You are pulling back the mask; on a superficial level, it is easy to understand how the job search can make an individual feel vulnerable, exposed, and anxious. The anxiety and risk aversion associated with this process can cause individuals to procrastinate. Like a ghoul you can’t shake, there can be a nagging voice in your head reminding you that you need to be doing more. Brain research has repeatedly shown that humans try to maximize rewards and minimize threats – we often condition ourselves to avoid pain or resistance. Often times, we also avoid what is most important to us. Many scientists tend to be perfectionists, and this can be a debilitating attribute for a job search. We all want to choose the perfect job, create the perfect resume and negotiate the perfect salary. Fear that we will fall short can cause us to avoid those activities and procrastinate. Take some time today to think about the ghosts of your job searching past. Remember that there are a lot of “tricks” to job searching, so be sure to utilize the “treats” from OITE. We are here to help you at every stage along the way and can hopefully begin to help demystify a scary process.
