📝 My frustration with job seeking for 6 months with no reply 😞

☀️This morning I met up with Ian Tan ʰᵉʳⁱᵗᵃᵍᵉ ˢᵗᵒʳʸᵗᵉˡˡᵉʳ – another LinkedIn Top Voice in Hong Kong. We met up at Tai Kwun and he shared with me the history of this place!

🗃️ He reached out to me after reading one of my posts – My frustration during recession and said this article resonated well with him. Then he shared with me his story of finding a job in HK for 6 months but without any reply.

Ian left his job last August as he wanted to pursue another job that combines history and art – which is something he is passionate about. 

He resigned from his job in last August and thought it would be easy to find another job in a short period of time.

⏰ In the first few months, he was hopeful, sent out a lot of CVs, and applied to at least 30-40 jobs in the arts and cultural industry.

⌛3-4 months passed, he began to feel uncertain and anxious because he was not hearing back.

He used to write a lot of articles and shared happy things on LinkedIn such as the history and art of Hong Kong. Because he felt frustrated in the job seeking process, he shared less on LinkedIn.

💡When I asked Ian what kept him going despite meeting a lot of rejections.  He said that he followed a lot of coaches/professionals on LinkedIn. It’s the positive articles and vibes that those authors wrote kept him going.

🍞 While he was jobless, he took on freelance projects because he had to put bread on the table.

🌟He kept grinding through and applying for more jobs. Eventually, he finally found a role with Arup.

⚡ When I asked him for tips, he said looking back:

1) It is ok to feel down when you are jobless.

2) When you are at a job, you need to start accumulating your social capital and share your thoughts to the world (We term it as “Thought Bank”). 

💡💡So when bad times come, you can fall back on the social capital and "thought bank" that you accumulated overtime. For Ian, it was the positive image and his passion for the art and history in Hong Kong that he has built on social media.

I really enjoy listening to Ian’s story and I hope my sharing will motivate people to keep going through difficult times.

Ian also motivated me in my recruitment job as I made lower revenue compared to before. He motivated me to stay positive during tough times, keep thinking out of the box and find new ways to make money. 

🔴 What's your story?

🔴 How do you go through bad times?