Resiliency: The Key to A Successful Job Search
It was at the conclusion of another annual work cycle when I caught the contagious bug running rampant through workplaces. Not COVID — the itch to do something new. But I had no idea what that was. What followed was nearly a year-long transition period where I threw myself into an exhaustive, and exhausting, search for my next role.
I realized quickly that to truly dedicate myself to a thoughtful search, and to break a bad habit of jumping into a new role as an exit strategy from the last one, I had to free up the cognitive and psychological space to put myself out there.
Now in my thirties, my search factored in criteria I hadn’t prioritized in my twenties. Like most millennials, beyond salary and benefits I needed flexibility and bandwidth to raise my three, young-but-not-for-long, children. I wanted a boss who could elevate my work and mentor me, while also giving me latitude to run with projects and take the ownership and the senior leadership my resume prepared me for. To get out of bed every morning, I needed intellectually stimulating work that gave back to society in a meaningful way.
Few things are as demoralizing as a job hunt. I spoke with 19 different companies, with 19 distinctly different interview processes. This meant giving presentations to board members, four-part interviews, full-day job shadows, and long weekends spent on sample work product projects. My husband, who’s been at his company since college, was baffled by the volume of work companies expect applicants to do for free. I applied for roles I thought were a slam dunk that I wasn’t invited to interview for, and was pressured to interview and apply for multiple roles despite my certainty of the mismatch. (You think I can run a _____?)
Rejection. So much rejection. I felt like the penultimate, jilted bachelorette left on the desert island while the other woman hooked the man, the rose, and the helicopter ride to paradise. I was applying to so many positions that I’d get rejection notifications (emails, texts and voicemails) in the middle of other interviews and have to overcome the fierce instinct to curl up in the fetal position and continue to sell myself, my skills, and my value over a Zoom call.
But there were reverse rejections too. Digging into opportunities that looked pretty on paper revealed many red flags — indications of larger organization flaws. I finally adopted the mindset that I was scrutinizing companies as much or more as they were evaluating me. I used interview processes to vet organizations and suss out their commitment to their people.
Eventually, an opportunity took me by surprise. The Taproot Foundation had been popping up again and again in my search. The algorithm wanted me to apply; so, I did. I could tell when my first screening interview was with their COO, that The Taproot Foundation had a commitment to its people. I was intrigued. I ended up being offered a role on the team in accounts management, and in August of 2021, I quietly started working remotely from home for a non-profit based in New York.
A couple months later, I’ve accepted a new role as the Director of Impact Strategy, responsible for driving the implementation of Taproot Plus’, a marketplace that connects nonprofits with volunteers, short and long-term vision and maximizing impact for Taproot’s nonprofit network. In the end, it turned out the ideal role for me was one I had to create in partnership with a management team that saw my value.
Searching for a new role is emotional. It’s simultaneously demoralizing and invigorating, boring yet stressful. It’s tempting to let external factors, like prestige, title, clout cloud your decision making. But if you can reduce the noise, and stay focused on your non-negotiables, you can come out on the other side with a job you can show up to every day confident you chose you.
