Navigating the Bustle of the Job Search Hustle
What doesn’t feel so great, what helps,
and how I’m staying human through it.
By Raquel Carlson—bringing people, content, and creative systems together so teams can scale and ideas can serve the people they’re made for. Also just a creative human who loves connecting with other humans.
“What's working or not working as you navigate the job market?”
Great question. I have no idea.
Hi, my name’s Raquel, though I’ve been lovingly addressed by customers as “Rachel,” “Rachelle,” “Raegal,” and the occasional “Emily” (🤨). I’m a creative who loves empowering people to do what they do best, and I’ve worked primarily in customer experience, marketing, and program management.
I’m a couple of months into my high-gear, intentional job search, eight months after leaving my last long-term gig at a high-growth SaaS company. Coming back to the job market after being off LinkedIn and job boards for most of the past 7–8 years is like waking up from a 7–8 year coma into a different world. And frankly, it is a different world.
You may be in a similar boat. You may have been navigating these seas longer than I have, or you’ve just set sail. You might have arrived here by choice, or without a choice in the matter. Regardless of how, I’m sorry you’re here and going through it, too, because it’s wild out there.
So, how do we keep moving forward?
Stories have a way of connecting and expanding us. So I’d love to share what I’m learning, seeing, and feeling in hopes that it offers some solidarity, encouragement, and perspective as we navigate the bustle of the job search hustle.
A quick roadmap of what I’m covering
What doesn’t feel so good
AI filters and keyword games
Quantity vs. quality (and the whiplash)
The emotional + financial strain
The weird grief of leaving a role
What feels good, and what I’m learning
Letting ego/imposter syndrome have their necessary deaths
Building systems to track and pace the search
Exploring unexpected paths (including side quests and achievements unlocked)
Reframing networking as connection
Log out of LinkedIn sometimes
My biggest encouragement to you
Letting past-you remind present-you what’s possible
What doesn’t feel so good
Like I said, coming back to the job market after being off of LinkedIn and job boards for the majority of the past 7–8 years is like waking up from a 7–8 year coma into a different world.
🤖 I’m not a robot. I feel the struggle of wanting to satisfy the AI bots with all the right keywords in my resume, and still appear entirely, intriguingly, impressively human if a human were to read my resume (keyword being “if”). But I should probably always prepare for that “if,” and still keep fingers crossed that I have all the keywords to get me through the door in the first place.
And honestly? No wait — “And honestly?” is a telltale AI phrase now, just like those em-dashes, which I actually love knowing how to use appropriately now.
🤔 Questioning Strategy. I am perpetually uncertain if quantity or quality is the best strategy for where and how often I'm applying. Should my goal be landing any job I'm qualified for, or holding out for an opportunity and a company that lights me up?
I have experience and skills that apply to so many roles and departments. Do I keep casting my net wide, or narrow my approach to really invest some time into fewer opportunities where there’s alignment in values, goals, and mission?
The LinkedIn thought leader consensus (about everything, frankly) seems to be: …yes?
✍🏻 Cover letters. These used to be my favorite to write. After putting so much time into writing so many that have resulted in generic rejection emails, though? Not so much, anymore.
This usually makes me circle back and revisit my “quantity or quality?” strategy.
🏟️ Saturation. Seeing the number of applicants to a single role in a single day, according to LinkedIn, and wondering how I can stand out (again, to both AI and humans), is sometimes enough to make me hit “Save” and come back to the job search the next day.
I’ve started ignoring this metric altogether, because we’re #1 fans of our sanity over here.
🤑 Finances. Budgeting, re-budgeting, dipping into savings (again), stretching things as far as they can go, and still finding simple ways to enjoy life with the underlying awareness of “No, I’m not in my ideal situation right now, but doing this is important to me.”
I’ve been exploring some side-hustles or part-time work while trying to land something full-time or more aligned to help keep some cash coming in.
Some days this feels like an adventure, some days this puts me in a freeze state.
But I know this is a big one for all of us, and it’s felt exponentially if you’re someone others depend on, too.
💆🏻♀️ Mental and emotional strain. Scarcity mindset and desperation energy are the worst.
I’ve done a lot of work to reprogram these mindsets throughout my life, and have adopted tools to regulate my nervous system when the anxiety spikes. But these energies can creep in hard and do a sly handoff to imposter syndrome, which can totally tank me for a day.
I also had a near-syncope moment recently that I can attribute to accumulated life-and-world stress I wasn’t allowing myself to fully process related to (gestures to the general everything).
Coping with humor isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but what a time to be alive, right?
Lol right?!
❤️🩹 Grief. This one is weird.
The pursuit of a healthy work-life balance (or work-life integration) needs to include monitoring our identity creep (and I’m not talking about Radiohead).
The reality is we always bring some extent of ourselves to our work, to our co-workers, our customers, and the work we do returns the provisions that enable us to live out our personal lives and wellbeing.
No matter how you left things behind, there is a normal grief that comes with it, and grief is a weird kaleidoscope of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
If you’re experiencing any of these, there is nothing wrong with you, and there is always help available to you.
🐻 Momma bear moment... “It’s business, it’s not personal,” is a phrase I have more than a few choice words for. If someone has said this to you, do not let the emotional immaturity of people who hide behind insensitive platitudes undermine your human experience. They may have had power in your organization, but they do not have power over you.
⏳ Time. There’s so much of it. And not enough of it. Hours turn into days, weeks into months. I want to speed it all up to when I land my next role, when I feel settled in a rhythm and consistent paycheck again, but I simultaneously want to slow it down as I spin up another version of my budget for yet another month — and, if I’m honest, enjoy my slow, quiet mornings I’ve allowed myself.
Wow — this is fun, right?
The overarching sentiments on my worst days are easily overwhelm and fatigue.
But I can’t stay there.
What feels good, and what I’m learning
I’m not a fan of toxic positivity, or avoiding the reality of things when life is just unavoidably hard. We grow (and heal) when we face things head-on and pace our way through them, not around them.
The last thing I want to do is gaslight myself or others about anything we’re all likely to feel within these realities.
What's interesting, though, is that many of these struggles and setbacks have a flip side — a silver lining.
For me, this isn’t “Just look on the bright side,” but learning to ask myself:
“What’s the opportunity or adventure available to me, here? Right now?”
Here are some of those lessons and adventures, things that feel good, and what I’ve been doing to keep going at a healthy endurance-pace.
🥲 Ego and imposter deaths are actually kinda beautiful—and necessary. I’ve navigated both through rejections, putting myself out there as “open to work” more publicly, applications that feel like a big reach, and especially in reaching out to people for advice, resume review, and encouragement.
I have cried from feeling so stuck and uncertain in those imposter syndrome moments, but the most recent time I cried was after receiving positive feedback from someone I really respect. I went into the meeting bracing for my shadow-self’s narrative, “you’re elusively never enough,” to be reinforced. Instead, he spoke highly about my resume, experience, and capabilities, when I wasn’t able to see myself clearly, and gave me a few pointers to help clarify and refine how I represent myself (and some skills to keep developing). I thanked him for everything he said, and his response was, “This was all you. I’m just pointing out what’s already here. You should be proud.” 🥹
Being more open to learn has never failed to make me better.
🏁 Integrate feedback at your pace. I’ve continually incorporated feedback (from people and career coaching workshops) into my resumes, after sitting with it, and have learned to adapt my experience to more industry-standard language.
🏆 New Skill Unlocked!
I’ve started feeling more impressed with myself and confident in my experience as I do that. But I’ve needed to make this work efficient and scalable for myself.
So instead of changing one single resume for every single application, I have three core resumes for three different kinds of work I’m targeting. I adapt them as needed, but for the most part I just send one of these core three.
This felt really daunting at first. But now I have three resources that can be used on their own, or as templates that only need slight alteration, all representing me truthfully from my three core angles. That feels really good.
☝🏼 Update: Just days after I submitted this blog piece for review, I learned three things:
1. I actually don’t want to do one of the three kinds of work I was previously targeting. Hooray for clarity!
2. I’m sitting in a resume workshop that is saying to only have a single “one-and-done” resume—not multiple, or a new one for every role you apply for. I’m going to give this a try.
3. “There is no perfect resume.” Thank goodness. I recommend following Katie McIntyre and Gaurav Valani on LinkedIn for their resume advice, free resources, and positive vibes.
⭐ Show your work—for you. A lot of my life lives in Notion pages, and I’ve been keeping a customized database for all of my job applications or networking touch-points, with multiple fields for keeping it categorized and updated. It’s been more beneficial than I initially anticipated.
My favorite view has been the calendar, so I have a visual representation of how much work I've been putting in each day, week, month. It makes me proud and it makes it easier to call a day “enough.”
☝🏻 Also, if you’re certifying weekly for unemployment, this will make reporting that much easier having everything in one place. Track your application date, job title, company, application status, and the link or contact info through which you applied. You can do this in a Notion database or simply in a table or sheet, too.
🆕 New pathways. It’s been a happy little thrill when roles pop up at companies I'd never considered and realizing, "Oh, I might actually enjoy something like this."
This opens up two kinds of pathways: neural and real-world opportunity. You start to daydream and believe you can do something new, and then you take steps and start putting it into action. If anything, you have a new saved job search to keep tabs on.
I’ve also been experimenting a bit with the whole side-hustle thing. Luckily, I love watching other people’s pets. Though I’ve learned so far that working for UberEats is more of a glorified podcast-listening drive where I can maybe make a little extra cash, but it will require strategy to feel effective (luckily this girl loves the chance to strategize something). Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but my first day of delivering tacos and boba was hilarious
. 🏆 New Life Experience Unlocked!
Spider-Man delivered pizzas too, right?
My new LinkedIn banner is: Open to radioactive spider pets and UberEats tips (both wisdom and dolla bills).
🤝🏻 Networking → Connection. This reframe was a huge one for me. It’s easy for “networking” to feel impersonal, and even the word “connection” can sometimes take on a manufactured and disingenuous vibe.
I re-joined the Support Driven network, hesitant to dive into another Slack community, but knowing I’d find some solace in a streamlined source of roles and people relevant to my experience. I had been previously connected with Scott Tran, and I told him I felt my nervous system relax when I first hopped back into the SD slack to browse through #job-board and #job-seekers.
I’ve also learned that I have a lot to offer people, and I don’t have to be in a glorious season to pass on what I know. Rejoining Support Driven and answering Scott’s question (which was the opening line of this blog post) is what led to me writing this piece in the first place.
People are still lovely.
People still want to help.
And often, they will.
Let them cheer you on when you're all out of can-evens.
And you can be one of those people for others, too.
💤 Turn off the job search. Seriously. Disconnect from it entirely and silence LinkedIn for a day or two a week. This is just as important as engaging with it all the rest of the week.
Why?
Life is still beautiful. And we still need rest, play, our people, and time spent not hustling or worrying—or at least worrying a little less actively.
Time can feel daunting when you’re out of a job, but when was the last time you had an extra 40+ hours a week to use at your own discretion? When will you have this time again? Should you use it wisely? Of course. But you get to cultivate your ideal schedule, take long lunches and coffee dates, be more present with your loved ones, pick up a hobby. The options are limitless; use your imagination. You could even use this time to recover your imagination.
Especially if you're also recovering from burnout during your job search (like me). Use this time to incorporate what's truly restorative for you, so you don't jump from one season of burnout right into another.
“Touch grass.” Or, become one with the roses.
"Ok, Raquel, this sounds great. But how do I do this, when my entire future feels uncertain?"
I hear you. I’ll leave you with this ✨
Past you has something to remind you
The biggest foundational point for me has been allowing past me to be one of my present-day “Expanders.”
Using To Be Magnetic terminology, an Expander is “someone who has been where you are and has successfully achieved what you desire. They help you see to believe that what you want is possible for you, communicating to your subconscious that if they can have it, you can too.”
I've been scrappy before, I can be scrappy again.
I’ve landed roles I would have never dreamed of before, multiple times, and those came by putting myself out there (sometimes a little more boldly than “normal” and in spite of all imposter syndrome) and taking what felt like huge leaps. I’ve leveled up professionally, and even more importantly, personally, time and time again.
It’s happened before. I have to believe it can happen again.
You can likely be one of your own Expanders, too.
Make a list of every time you accomplished something you didn’t think you could. Every goal you’ve ever met that you’re proud of. How you landed your last job and were chosen out of the multitude. The times you chose your values or integrity over “the easy path.” Also write down every time you’ve been chosen, but most importantly, every time you’ve chosen yourself, and how that made you feel. And keep this somewhere visible.
Because it happened for you before, and it can happen for you again.
What’s one thing that’s helping you keep going right now?
If you’re in the wonderful world of Support, join me in Support Driven’s Slack community. If you’re on LinkedIn, feel free to connect with me there.
When I’m not being Business Raquel, I’m often reading or writing, enjoying the sunshine, or having a little creative fun on the side. You can find all the links to all my other things on my website.