Quick story

In the summer of 2001, I resigned from a good tech job in France and moved back to Israel. Less than a year later, I was already wondering if it may have been one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

The next few months were supposed to be for relaxation. However, while I was lounging in the sun, the DotCom Bubble burst and with it disappeared the demand for my web development and managerial skills.

My only consolation, if you can call it that, was that if I hadn't quit I would have been laid off anyway. A very annoying consolation when you realize that by staying on a few more months, I would have received a compensation package instead of leaving empty-handed. Grrr.

10 months, 2 empty job offers, a handful of interviews and countless resume emails later, I finally moved on to my next job.

Did I expect it to take so long?

No.

Was it a frustrating uphill climb day in and day out that felt like it might never end?

After month 3, yes.

The moment you realize that your job search is taking longer than you expected is the moment job search depression begins.

Where does job search depression come from?

… secondary stressors of job loss such as financial strain and loss of personal control are the true culprits that lead to depression. The study also found that elevated levels of depression ‘may reduce the likelihood of reemployment.'

In other words, it's the anxiety and consequences of losing your job that lead to job search depression, not the job loss itself.

15 Causes

1) Loss of control – sudden, traumatic change of having a great job one day and no job the next.

2) Constant uncertainty of not knowing when the job search will end.

3) The ever-continuing quest for acceptance that is a job search.

4) Backlash of commiseration with other job seekers.

5) Feeling of insignificance stemming from a lack of replies to your many cover letters and resumes sent out.

6) Overwhelming ratio of rejection letters to positive replies.

7) The new experience of your first time being unemployed.

8) Being forced into a tough situation with no choice in the matter.

9) The unease of having to do something that you were never taught in school or simply aren't prepared for, i.e. a job search.

10) The strain of managing personal finances after your main source of revenue is gone.

11) Having to support a family or other dependents during a rough moment in your life.

12) The realization that you might be depressed and not knowing how to the depression.

13) The difficult need to deal with these feelings while still seeming upbeat in interviews and while networking.

14) Envying friends and family head out on vacation and enjoying life while you're required to continue the unending search.

15) Unemployment embarrassment – struggling to answer one of the most asked questions: “What do you do?”

What can you do to prevent depression from affecting your job search?

Management guru Peter Drucker once said “what gets measured gets managed.” Keeping track of your worries will help you keep them under control.

Here's how:

Print out the list above or download it. Rate each cause on a scale of 1 to 5 in terms of how much it's likely to affect you or is affecting you already, where 1 is “very little” and 5 is “a lot”. Feel free to add other causes that could apply in your case.

Create priorities by sorting the list in decreasing order so that the 5s – the most worrisome causes – appear at the top.

Follow through with your recommended actions, especially for the top causes on your list.

After each week or month of your job search, take a few minutes to look over the previous date's estimations and understand what's working and what isn't. Then fill in new ratings for the current date, sort, and choose new blocking actions.

Leave a Comment:

34 comments

This is an intelligent, important, and helpful article for people who are searching for a job, feeling bad and want to improve their situation. The article helps understand the source of the bad feeling, and given the EXCEL, it is easy to trace the bad felling. Thanks. Meirav, recruiting expert, owner of WiseMen agency

Trememdous article, Jacob! I work 20-25% of my month with longterm jobseekers, and this will inform the work we already do to reverse that depression. Thanks so much for alerting us to a fact of life for all those who don’t bounce from one job to the next in a short space of time!!

isabella- do those programs cover all professions? There are many large companies like Google for which a typical recruitment process can easily take longer than 2 months, and that’s just for one opening to fill.

Pete- one year is definitely long in my book, I can understand why it becomes such a milestone to avoid. Few people would not be depressed by that point.

I have been looking for about 2 months now, and the WORST thing I find is this whole electronic age.
I find that I have NO control over who in that company gets my resume, no contact name for future follow-up!
I might just become a headhunter again.

[…] but it’s important to take my point seriously to avoid nasty side-effects like desperation, depression and low self-esteem. It only takes one employer to give you the break you need, so keep applying for […]

[…] might really be lazy. Of course some people are, but what’s more likely is that they have job search depression and are so completely demotivated that 30 minutes is all they can manage before getting fed up. If […]

I don’t like to say it but everyone at some time suffers from jobseeker depression, everyone is competing against the masses of applications applying for one job, so this is when you need to brand yourselves for jobs that you can do it confidently when you apply for job against the masses who have similar experience.

I personally believe no. 10 should be no. 1 when you have the banks biting at your ankles and you have a young family to support in today’s economy would have to be the most difficult situation and hardest challenge anyone has to face and we can thank the Government for that…. too many promises broken.

I am not married nor have a family but I believe the Government spent our surplus too soon our manufacturing has suffered and so has 40% of our households.

Thank you so much for this. I am going to start using the spreadsheet. It is so hard to stay motivated- each unsuccessful interview leads to more desperation which makes the subsequent interview even less successful. Yet, one can’t be too confident because they don’t want that either. I no longer know what employers want, and never had a problem landing a job since I was 13 years old. I’m hoping the suggestions here help with the depression and oversleeping. Thanks again from sunny, jobless California.

[…] overwhelming. There are others out there feeling the same things you are. Meeting once a week can keep you from getting depressed, help you set goals, and can be a great way to learn new job search strategies. You can also get […]

I live in NY, one of the worst cities to be unemployed. I finished a job in Nov. 2016. And now looking ever since, at times I feel disgusted and depressed. At 40 yrs, you just want to build your savings, and be financially stable. I started exercising to bring down my stress levels. This blog was great thanks for posting.