Balancing a Job Search and Holiday Stress

Balancing a Job Search and Holiday Stress Balancing a Job Search and Holiday Stress What happens when you try to juggle sending out job applications and researching companies with shopping for presents and baking sugar cookies for the neighborhood exchange? Possibly an anxiety-provoking mess of holiday stress, if you aren’t careful. Job hunts and holiday preparations are both stressful on their own. Combining the two can make you feel like you’re always being pulled in a different direction and not doing justice to either. The good news is that these important activities can go on side by side- if you’re willing to get organized and cut yourself some slack. Here’s how to balance a job search and holiday stress: Prioritize. What holiday activities and traditions mean the most to you? Perhaps missing your daughter’s Nutcracker recital is out of the question, but not putting up outside lights this year would be tolerable. Likewise, which job search actions do you really need to accomplish now? Completing an application for the posting that sounds like it was written with you in mind might rank high, but finding contact information for hiring managers at places you want to cold call could wait until January. Prioritizing your job search tasks can help balance any holiday stress you may be feeling. Create a central calendar. With a solid sense of what you want to accomplish, start slotting tasks into openings. Give everything a space, starting with the things that are most crucial. This practice enables visualization of how you’re using your time, and you may find that you’re trying to do too much. Keeping records of professional and social/familial obligations in the same place can prevent unforeseen overlaps as well. Delegate. Trouble working everything in? Besides cutting back, another option is to find help. Ask your tech-savvy teen to scout the Internet for the best deal on that hot toy his brother wants. See if your parents could take the kids to a holiday matinee while you make some resume revisions. Accept your spouse’s offer to wrap presents, even if the edges do look a bit messy. Go with the flow. You’re definitely not the only person trying to pack a variety of things into a few weeks. Instead of worrying when that hiring manager will be back in the office or lamenting the lack of quality new job postings, look more at what is in your grasp. “Lower your expectations,” says Vicky Oliver, author of 301 Smart Answers to Tough Interview Questions.  â€œRealize that hiring managers are going to be doing their holiday shopping  and planning for their family get-togethers now. Very little progress will be made until the New Year. But its a great time for a job seeker to get organized. Take the time to research those companies, read back articles on the places to which you hope to apply, write those cover letters, and then stick them in your drafts folder.” And don’t forget about networking! That fellow parent at the punchbowl during a choral concert, the equally bored shopper waiting in the checkout line, other volunteers handing out toys to kids, and party-goers hoping someone else will break the ice at an alumni holiday mixer are all potential sources of leads. Know someone looking for a job? Refer a friend to with this link- you’ll get a month free service and they’ll get 30% off!