Applying for jobs can be taxing, both mentally and emotionally.

There’s the mental work of scrolling through endless ads on Seek, selecting the ones you might be even vaguely qualified for, writing individualised cover letters, and updating your CV to highlight just the right points.

Then there’s the emotional work of getting motivated for that job, imagining yourself doing it and all the things that will flow from working there ($$$, etc.), as well as the experience you will accrue. This emotional work can be particularly hard to continue, especially when repeatedly slapped down by ‘the position has been filled’ response or, worse still, the dreaded no reply.

I wish I had some silver bullet advice to proffer about how to navigate through the choppy waters of job searching, but I don’t. I guess all you can do is keep trying, apply for as many jobs as possible, and try to tailor your applications to the job as best you can to try to make yourself stand out.

Try not to get your self-worth tied up too tightly in any job, and try to not let job searching take over your life. A good piece of advice is to treat searching for a job like a job itself by taking breaks and limiting your job searching time to normal working hours.

It’s also a good idea to call people up when you submit an application, so they can at least put a voice to one of the many applications they surely have in front of them. That can be daunting, but hey, odds are you might never speak to them again!