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Job seekers do a lot of waiting — waiting to hear from employers, waiting for a promotion, waiting for job opportunities to arise, and, for some needing extra cash, waiting tables. This is particularly true for job seekers in higher education, an industry with searches that could last an entire year, and during the last year when a global pandemic has stunted employment growth.
So how do you wait, other than patiently?
When it comes to waiting, there are two types of job seekers: pessimistic and optimistic. The pessimistic job seeker complains about the lack of opportunities or how the system is rigged. When they don’t get the job, hey, at least they are right. The optimistic job seeker is happy knowing that their time, effort, and money invested on their career is well-spent, only to be devastated when it doesn’t work out. Of course, both types of people could land a job, but at that point, they’ll cease being job seekers.
Kate Sweeny, professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, has studied what it means to wait well.
“Undoubtedly, nearly everyone can bring to mind a time when they anxiously awaited some important news,” Sweeny wrote in her 2012 paper titled “Waiting Well: Tips for Navigating Painful Uncertainty.” “In academic life, for example, the experience of waiting is nearly constant: academics must await decisions about manuscripts, grant proposals, tenure and promotion, and job offers.”
Waiting is a temporary state of uncertainty, even if the duration of waiting is unknown. For example, everyone waited to see how the pandemic affected their careers and, for too many, if they’d even have a job with increases in layoffs. Waiting can also refer to the time between when a job seeker applies for a job and when a hiring decision is made. The expectation is usually a couple of months.
Sweeny’s strategies are intended to minimize anxiety, disruption, and other harmful effects during waiting periods, but also to maximize the benefits once the uncertainty is resolved. Her tips are for anyone who is waiting, for everything from bar exam results to a cancer diagnosis, but the following are her tips with added commentary for job seekers:
Distract Yourself
Instead of ruminating about your career fate, Sweeny said a coping strategy is to find a particularly enjoyable and absorbing activity to distract you from thoughts of uncertainty during difficult waiting periods. Short-term denial, she adds, is a typical and even beneficial response to difficult life events. After you’ve applied for a job, or during periods when there are no job postings available, bridge the gap by developing other areas of your life, practice meditation, volunteer, or take up “unnecessary creating,” as recommended by author Todd Henry. More recent research by Sweeny looked at how people in Wuhan, China, coped with uncertainty while quarantined during the pandemic and people who experienced high levels of flow, or a state of complete immersion in an activity, reported more positive emotions.
Look for Silver Linings
Identify the benefits of all possible outcomes. Even bad news has upsides. For job seekers, this could mean greater certainty with what’s not meant to be, the needed push to pursue another line of work or an “alt-ac” career, or remaining in a familiar geographic area. Whatever the case, find the silver lining. “People who minimize their attachment to that goal and even reconsider the definition of a good outcome will likely experience less anxiety as they wait and less distress in the face of bad news,” Sweeny wrote.
Keep Things in Perspective
Don’t let a search committee that barely knows you, or layoffs determined by the administrative bean counters, pass judgement on your value as a professional. There are too many variables related to economic patterns and idiosyncrasies of a hiring manager. “People can reduce the potential sting of a bad outcome by calling into question the validity of the news as a gauge of their self-worth or aptitude, or by casting doubt on the reliability of the news source,” Sweeny wrote.
Plan Ahead
Do something to mitigate the harmful effects of a bad outcome. Don’t suspend a job search just because you applied for your ideal position. Keep planning as if you won’t get the job and you’ll be better off for the next opportunity. You can also prepare for layoffs by preemptively adjusting your family budget or performing more professional development activities such as networking, informational interviews, and polishing your resume/CV. “Such efforts constitute a type of proactive coping,” Sweeny wrote, “and research suggests that people who engage in proactive coping suffer fewer negative consequences in the face of stressful or traumatic events.”
Manage Your Expectations
This returns us to the question of being a pessimistic job seeker, bracing for bad news, or an optimistic job seeker, who’s already drafting that big career change announcement for social media before being offered a job. So should you be pessimistic or optimistic? According to Sweeny, it’s both, but at different moments during the waiting process. “Pessimism carries few or no costs in the moments before the end of a waiting period and confers emotional protection from disappointment and other negative emotions in the face of bad news,” Sweeny wrote. Alternatively, managing expectations toward a hopeful outlook has benefits as well, such as the sheer pleasure or a better psychological adjustment when they do encounter difficulty. “The best advice may be to maintain optimism early in a waiting period and then shift toward pessimism just prior to learning the uncertain news, all the while maintaining hope for (but not necessarily expectation of) a good outcome.”
In Conclusion
There is no right or wrong way to wait. Everyone’s circumstances are different. But how you work the different pedals on the organ, optimism as well as pessimism, can bring greater harmony to your career. Even Sweeny said that following the common advice to ”think positively” or ”just take your mind off it” can be harmful.
The late philosopher Tom Petty once said the waiting is the hardest part. If that’s true, then you should do all you can to make this part of your job search easier.
