7 Effective Career Hacks to Beat that Quarter-Life crisis

India Education

Wikipedia says that a “quarter-life crisis” is a period ranging from 20s to 30s, in which a person can feel confused and stressful about his career, relationship and other aspects of life. Getting a job is not easy, what’s even hard is to start looking for one, because you don’t know where to begin from.You might have heard people suggesting you to engage with prospective employers, but how do you even start finding a prospective employer who might be interested in your profile?

*All the stats in the video are taken from the online survey conducted by Censuswide on behalf of LinkedIn from October 31-November 3, 2017 among 6,014 respondents aged 25-33 across the United States, United Kingdom, India and Australia.*

The first few years of job hunting are the toughest because you’re either completely new to the field or have a very little experience. A lot of employers might not consider your profile due to this, yet, we all have friends who seem to be getting good job offers. This is a very common scenario and a recent survey even revealed that around 51% women feel anxious about their successful friends compared to 41% men. Believe it or not, but more than one-quarter (28%) of 25-33 year olds are unsure how to approach a career move so you’re not alone. If you are clueless about making a move in your career, here are 7 hacks that’ll help you beat away those quarter-life crisis:

1. Organized job search

Do not spend your entire day job hunting! Sit down and think whether you are ready to take up a job. If you are, sort down a list of prospective companies where you can drop your CV. Find their contact details like email addresses and phone numbers. Take out an hour or two and mail your CV to 4-5 companies each day, ensure that you write a good cover letter for each email that you send to the recruiter. Spend rest of the time improvising and learning new skills. Do not stalk the recruiters by emailing or calling them everyday. Give them a week to get back to you.

2. Good Research

Don’t look for a job because you want to work but look for a job where you can utilize your knowledge and skills. Don’t take any decision in haste, you don not want to leave your first job in less that six months. Ensure that you are joining the right organization by researching about it. Go to their website and see what kind of work they do, check out their list of clients, read the testimonials and find if the organization has made any kind of progress since its inception.According to a latest survey carried out by Forbes, 49% people use social media as a way to know about the company they’re interested in. If you find all this information about the organization trustworthy and positive, only then go for it.

3. Polish your CV and complete your LinkedIn profile

No matter how much skill set you possess, your employer will first judge you by your CV. If your CV fails to make an impression on the employer, chances are you will not be considered for the interview. Do not use the CV that you’ve used to get the college internship. Your job CV must look professional. You can skip mentioning your hobbies and interests in your new CV and focus on including more of your skills and accomplishments like a project that you’ve worked on or the number of internships that you’ve done. According to a LinkedIn post, having at least 5 skills on your profile gets you up to 17x more profile views and up to 31x more messages from recruiters.

Did you know that there are over 39 million students and recent grads on Linkedin? In a recent article written by Scott Engler, LinkedIn Branding Specialist, said that the LinkedIn profile SUMMARY is the #1 thing recruiters will spend the most time looking at when considering contacting potential candidates. So ensure that your LinkedIn profile is always up-to-date.

4. Attend job fairs

When emails and calls don’t seem enough to bag a job, step out and attend job fairs in your city. You can get information about recent job fairs in newspapers or radios. These job fairs connect you to prospective employers who might hire you after screening your skills and abilities. Although job fairs do not guarantee a job for you, but it is a great platform to connect with a lot of people from different industries. Also, your resume can easily be ignored and tossed into a bin, but meeting a potential employer person-to-person will put a face on your application.

5. Follow up with employers

It is important to follow up with employers from time to time to make them feel that you are responsible and genuinely interested in the role. Your work doesn’t end with forwarding your CV to your prospective employers, you need to ensure that the CV has reached them and your application has been viewed. Follow up with the HR department once a week to inquire about the progress.

6. Develop your personality

If you constantly get rejected despite of having the right technical skills, you need to find out why. Do you lack the confidence to talk to your interviewer or do you panic inside the interview room? In a recent survey by LinkedIn ,2,000 business leaders admitted that the soft skills like leadership, communication, collaboration, and time management are taken into account during interviews. In fact, 57% of them said these soft skills are more important than hard skills.

It’s time that you build your personality, work on your soft skills and face your employers with confidence. Try writing down what you want to speak during the interview. Some common questions that are asked in the interview room are, “Why do you think we should hire you?” and “Where do you think yourself in the next 10 years?”, so be prepared to answer these.

7. Continue studying

Graduating doesn’t really mean that you need to find a job right away. You can take a break, go somewhere, have fun, come back and then decide what to do with your life or if you have planned to study further, you can also do so. Nearly one-quarter (23%) have taken a career break during this period of uncertainty, taking time off from work to reevaluate what they want to do. While one in ten have switched from full-time work to freelance or temporary work assignments.Take your call and decide what do you want to do with your life and if you feel like you are not yet ready for a job, there’s always a way to get back to studying.

The phase between your early 20s to late 30s is one of the toughest. It’s hard to make the smooth transition to a “real” adult world when nothing seems to work out in your favor. So, take enough time, talk to your parents, teachers or anyone who can give you proper guidance regarding your career. Most importantly, have faith in your knowledge and skills and keep looking for the right job because it’s never too late.

Sources

https://blog.linkedin.com/2017/november/15/encountering-a-quarter-life-crisis-you-are-not-alone

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/top-5-dos-donts-job-seekers-linkedin-profile-summary-scott-engler/

https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/trends-and-research/2018/the-most-in-demand-hard-and-soft-skills-of-2018

https://blog.linkedin.com/2018/april/12/linkedin-tips-to-keep-your-profile-fresh

About Shreoshe Ghosh

Shreoshe has been into content writing for more than a year now. An animal lover since childhood, you can find her watching movies or playing with her pet cat, when she’s not writing. She is also enthusiastic about cooking and enjoys trying her hand at new recipes often. She wishes to travel around the world someday and work for animal welfare.