if you are struggling to find a job now hear me out you are competing with 100k people who just
got laid off 4 million new grads and many of the 50 million people who quit their job in 2022 it's
not just you who are struggling it's the entire market and the world it took me a whole year to
get a job in the 2021-2022 economy and I don't think it's gonna get any better in 2023 but here
are three things I learned from my one year of unemployment and I hope these three things can
help you first find opportunities that are not advertised do know what I did in the early on
of my job application Phase I went on LinkedIn and I only looked at the job posts that are suggested
to me and do you know what are these job titles product designer at Asana H7 he already applied
UI ux product design lead senior product designer education senior product designer at Google
product manager at Snapchat senior product manager at TikTalk technical ux designer at Apple Google
Etc these jobs are advertised to me not because I am a good fit to the job but because I will be
a person that's interested in the job because it meets my expectation and I will click on it
they are paid to be shown to me and these are the jobs that 80 percent of the people are competing
to even though these are just 20 or even one percent of the job existing on the market so
here's what I suggest you to do go on smaller platform instead of LinkedIn and then just look
for whatever jobs that are out there that kind of match the title you want to be and then apply to
all of them that's what I figured out it doesn't matter what the company title is as long as you
are hooked with the recruiter behind a role you are going to have way more resources and
sometimes staffing agencies can help you to find contractor roles that exist during time like
this but doesn't exist on LinkedIn networking also helps a lot in a time like this and I've
recommend it so many times you shall read Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi if you feel like you
don't know how to network the second thing I learned is improve yourself but don't try to
perfect yourself let me tell you a stupid story of mine so when I was trying to become a ux designer
I actually had a few client projects on hand but I just didn't think they are good enough because
client projects are never perfect and I felt like I can design something better so instead
of showing these client projects on my portfolio I went ahead did three more personal projects on my
own and then totally made over my portfolio with my personal projects and do you know how stupid
that is if you are not a ux designer I'll give you an analogy it's as stupid as trying to drive
around a new City without using navigation app and I did that because I want to appear to be perfect
I felt like personal project I have full control so I can make it perfect did I make it perfect of
course not my skill is not matched to my level of expectation so don't try to perfect yourself
instead just try to improve yourself as long as you're improving that's good enough we all have
super high level of expectations and we are all perfectionists these days because we grew up with
internet and social media that show us how perfect the world looks even though it's not and you are
not perfect so here are things that you can do to improve yourself take an online course I took
four online courses ux design project management data analysis and accounting during my one year of
unemployment and I ended up using all of those you can also try to create opportunities for yourself
for example I started my YouTube channel when I was unemployed and I made myself a job being
a YouTuber is a job and this job doesn't require any company to actually hire me to do you can also
find a sketchier version of your dream job like an internship or a smaller client project but a
real world project you can do that can lead to your dream job for me I worked with a mortgage
company to redesign their website as a contract part-time role that leads to my full-time role at
eBay my Chinese mom during my unemployment time always told me to 骑驴找马 which means ride donkey
fine horse if you are finding a horse you at least shall ride a donkey to look for the horse don't
just walk to chase the horse and third emotionally detach from rejection if you've seen this video of
mine you know that I went through six rounds of interview with Google I even moved to a new City
because I thought I must learn this job at Google and I ended up getting rejected at the last round
and Looking Backward it all made sense but at that moment it was very easy to get so discouraged and
so disapproved and then started to self-sabotage there was a very long period of time that I told
myself that I will only start to work on my health when I find a job I will only start to
traveling after I got a job I will only start to work on my personal brand after I got a job
and that's so bad start doing what you want to do right now emotionally detach the rejection
from others and approve yourself self-validation is so important when you don't have any external
source of validation even as someone who has a job and has a personal brand I still feel so insecure
because what's happening with the environment all I hear now is this person got laid off that person
got laid off this company has another round of layoffs gpt4 is taking over there's an earthquake
here there's a disaster there oh my God let us all just acknowledge that there could have bad timing
but during a bad timing like this I want you to work on yourself to to validate yourself and to
keep improving yourself so when an opportunity comes you are fully ready to take it and if you
like this video you shall subscribe to my channel and also check out this video of mine that talked
about how I built my personal brand during this one year of unemployment and what mindset
that I use that really shifted my situation I'm Aliena I'll see you in this video peace