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I'm scared of actually getting a new job

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Post by Aggrax Wed Jun 24, 2015 3:41 am

So, I wrote a few practice cover letters, using the information for a few places I previously applied. The main problem I keep running into is that I can not talk myself up at all. I don't have any real practical skills I can use to make myself seem useful and I don't really have the positive qualities that a real job would be looking for in a worker.
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Post by reboot Wed Jun 24, 2015 9:22 am

Here are some skills you have based on this thread:

Able to work with a team (you have to be or thevpool would not have kept you for 9 years)

Ability to instruct all ages (evidence: you teach swimming to kids and adults and have done it for 9 years)

Willing to take on extra projects to assist the team (the added coordination/scheduling wor you do)
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Post by BasedBuzzed Wed Jun 24, 2015 12:07 pm

Other options: positive characteristics of what role you generally play in a team(how you fit into the social dynamic).

Further career plans within the company(at least what kind of skills you hope to develop further in the job).

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Post by Caffeinated Wed Jun 24, 2015 2:47 pm

Aggrax wrote:So, I wrote a few practice cover letters, using the information for a few places I previously applied. The main problem I keep running into is that I can not talk myself up at all. I don't have any real practical skills I can use to make myself seem useful and I don't really have the positive qualities that a real job would be looking for in a worker.

Oh man, that's one of the hardest things in the job search, that talking yourself up thing. I always feel super awkward about that. I think most people feel that way, it's just a thing you have to do.
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Post by reboot Wed Jun 24, 2015 3:08 pm

Caffeinated wrote:
Aggrax wrote:So, I wrote a few practice cover letters, using the information for a few places I previously applied. The main problem I keep running into is that I can not talk myself up at all. I don't have any real practical skills I can use to make myself seem useful and I don't really have the positive qualities that a real job would be looking for in a worker.

Oh man, that's one of the hardest things in the job search, that talking yourself up thing. I always feel super awkward about that. I think most people feel that way, it's just a thing you have to do.

I am 20+ years into my career and still hate it with a passion and I have done it thousands of times for jobs, speaker's bios, grants, biosketches, etc.. It is inherently awkward
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Post by HSavinien Thu Jun 25, 2015 7:24 pm

Job hunting is very stressful, man, my sympathy. This guy has a very useful and comprehensive set of advice for job searchers.
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Post by Aggrax Tue Jun 30, 2015 1:12 am

A co-worker said something that was very revealing tonight. I was in the locker room with two other co-workers getting ready to leave. One of them asked me how the job hunt was going and I said poorly. At that point, the other co-worker said the following (roughly paraphrased)

"Of course it's going poorly. All you ever do is sit around and complain about how no one will hire you. You know what you can do to get hired, you just choose not to do it. Even if you didn't change anything, you know that there are jobs around here that will hire basically anyone, but you never try to get those. It's because, despite what you say, you're happy with things now. You want to have large amounts of free time and a job with no demands or responsibility."

At that point, he left to go home. This stuck with the rest of the night because he was right. Even though this situation is basically unsustainable, I don't want to change because I'm to lazy to do actual work.
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Post by Enail Wed Jul 01, 2015 10:02 pm

Hmm, Aggrax, if you knew you could get a job instantly, and that it would be something that you could do well and that you wouldn't have any problem with showing up or doing the work, how would you feel about that?  Because from what you've said in this thread, it hasn't seemed to me like you're happy with things as they are now, so much as that you're scared you can't handle what it would take to change things.
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Post by Aggrax Sun Jul 05, 2015 1:24 am

Enail wrote:Hmm, Aggrax, if you knew you could get a job instantly, and that it would be something that you could do well and that you wouldn't have any problem with showing up or doing the work, how would you feel about that?  Because from what you've said in this thread, it hasn't seemed to me like you're happy with things as they are now, so much as that you're scared you can't handle what it would take to change things.

I don't hate the fact that I never need to have a real sleep schedule. I don't hate that I can just lay around all day some days getting almost nothing done. I don't hate how I have no real responsibility or challenge required in my life. I do hate that I barely have any money to my name and that, since I don't have a real job, I'm doing every single chore around the house, but those things are my fault. Bottom line is, I don't want to work and am too lazy to put in the effort. I'm sorry I wasted all of your time by asking for advice and only responding with pathetic whineing .
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Post by Enail Sun Jul 05, 2015 11:40 am

Aggrax, it's okay to have mixed feelings about it. It doesn't mean you're wasting our time. Even if you don't want to work at all, since you don't think the current situation is sustainable, there's nothing wrong with asking for advice on how to change it even if you struggle to find the motivation to make those changes. Have you talked with your therapist about this? Lack of motivation is a pretty classic part of depression, so whether you want to call it laziness or not, it could be a symptom that you can try to treat, and even if it's entirely just a personality trait, it's something that you can find ways to try and work around it.
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Post by Aggrax Wed Jul 08, 2015 5:51 pm

I don't want to use the fact that I do have some minor depression as we way of burying and excusing all of my faults. Even if it has had some effect on my motivation levels, it wouldn't be as bad if I wasn't, at my core, a lazy person.
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Post by Enail Wed Jul 08, 2015 8:00 pm

Does it matter if there's a personal fault there or not? Either way, the job is to figure out ways to manage to do the things you need to do in spite of it, and a therapist is a good person to help with that either way.
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Post by Aggrax Sun Jul 12, 2015 6:14 am

It does matter if it's a personal fault because there are certain things about a person, a fundamental trait of themselves, that they can't really change.

I have spoken to my therapist about some more practical aspects of my job hunt, such as improving my resume/cover letter. I haven't talked to him about this specific issue. It's kind of a moot point since my new insurance that takes effect in 2 weeks won't cover my visits anymore, so I likely won't be meeting any more meetings.
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Post by Enail Sun Jul 12, 2015 11:46 am

Aggrax wrote:It does matter if it's a personal fault because there are certain things about a person, a fundamental trait of themselves, that they can't really change.

That's true - and that can be true to some extent about depression, as well, not all depression goes away with treatment - but it doesn't mean you can't learn to manage either depression or personal faults in a way that allows you to get on with your life in spite of them. I think everyone has faults that cause them problems, and has to find ways to work around them or minimize their effects.

I have spoken to my therapist about some more practical aspects of my job hunt, such as improving my resume/cover letter. I haven't talked to him about this specific issue. It's kind of a moot point since my new insurance that takes effect in 2 weeks won't cover my visits anymore, so I likely won't be meeting any more meetings.

Oh, that's really too bad. Does your insurance cover any other therapy? Or maybe you can look for something sliding scale or free. It sounded like it was useful for you.
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Post by Aggrax Tue Jul 14, 2015 1:47 am

Enail wrote:Oh, that's really too bad. Does your insurance cover any other therapy? Or maybe you can look for something sliding scale or free. It sounded like it was useful for you.

I couldn't find their office on the website the insurance plan provided for looking up doctors, but I could have missed it. I have an appointment tomorrow, so I'm going to be asking about it then.

I want to believe that this is helpful, but I don't really know. I'm no better at taking this doctors advice than I have been at taking any other doctors advice. Plus, while I always leave my sessions feeling like I've gotten something out of it, I feel like it only takes one little thing to completely shatter that entire feeling.

Two weeks ago I had a session that I felt went really well and I was feeling pretty great that whole day. Then later at work I nearly snapped at one of my co-workers because she wanted a picture with me(I hate pictures of myself). Then for the rest of the week I just felt worse.
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Post by Enail Tue Jul 14, 2015 11:59 am

It's a slow process, building up those feelings to be sturdy enough to handle problems and stresses. If you can, when you realize it's shattered, try to pick it back up again, even if you can't bring it back as strongly as before. No one ever feels confident/calm/productive/whatever you've been getting out of it, 100% of the time no matter what's going on, so that's not something you should expect to achieve. But what you can have is resilience to bounce back more quickly from setbacks.
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Post by kath Wed Jul 15, 2015 12:54 am

Aggrax, you might also be able to get help from people whose job is helping other people find work - particularly if you fit the definition of "youth" for those types of services. They work with people of various stripes who will have had various job-search setbacks, and could give you a lot of advice about how to sell what you can do.

I was in co-op in university, and what I loved about it was I had to write TONS of applications. You've got some awesome cover letter advice so far, but one think I would add to the two-column approach is that when you are explaining why you have a particular qualification / trait they're looking for, give examples structured by the acronym STAR (Situation - Task - Action - Result). Like, "I have developed my ability to teach young children as a swim instructor, where I implemented and iterated on the swim instruction program over 9 years. In all, I taught X students how to swim and have contributed to improvements in the teaching methods used at the pool." So you explain the situation demonstrating the qualification, talk about the task you were given, the action you took, and the result you got.

I really think that cracking the internal code of how you can motivate yourself will be key. If there's any way you can keep doing therapy and if you can try to get your therapist to work directly on that, hopefully that will help. You might be able to depersonalize it a bit just as a tool, to help you overcome it - it's impossible to overcome things that are Inherently You, but if you're thinking of something as a part of you, but not the Inherent You, it might be easier to keep working on it. I don't think the important thing there is how much it is REALLY a part of the INHERENT YOU (which isn't necessarily that well understood anyway) versus thinking about it in a way that helps you deal with it, which is really the goal.

Also, you don't have to completely banish it from YOU to be able to work around it. People play against their personality types all the time, so I think you can learn to do it, even if it is an inherent part of you that you will always be working on.
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