Job hunting in Canada today can be an extremely daunting and emotionally damaging endeavour.

Though I love what I do and have some excellent people to work with, I’m always on the lookout for interesting gigs that could help take me to another level in my career. I recommend doing this to everyone as a healthy way to keep your CV and professional profiles up-to-date as well as being a good brain exercise.

Since I do have employment, plus freelance gigs, plus my own projects I’m building and growing, I’m not desperate for a new job.

And it’s a good thing too, because if I was desperate, I may be in an extreme state of depression by now.

I’m paraphrasing here, but in the last three years I’ve had more “you’re awesome, but we’re going in another direction, please keep looking in case a better fit becomes available” emails than I can shake a stick at.

Even though I do have good gigs, those rejection letters sting a little more each time. Especially, when I know I’m more than amply qualified for most of those positions. On occasion I have overreached because why not try, but those rejections were expected.

The fact I didn’t get interviews for most of the other jobs was very frustrating. In fact, there was a lot of damage to my confidence and emotional well being. It took a lot of effort for me to bounce back and snap out of the funk I was in.

Thanks to some quality breathing exercises, an amazingly supportive family, and deep soul searching, I started to focus on the day-to-day and week-to-week goals. Suddenly, the future seemed brighter again.

What can also be frustrating, but not as depressing, is when I get notices on LinkedIn that I would be a perfect fit for “these jobs” and there are several that I applied to and was rejected for without even speaking to me on the phone.

This exact scenario recently occurred, which spurred on this post, and I’m wondering if the jobs were ever filled at all.

I also started to imagine I was a person who was qualified, experienced, and out of work. If I was being rejected for jobs I’m perfect for and then seeing them come up again only weeks and months later, it would truly crush my soul.

I want anyone in that situation to know that it’s not you, it’s them. Either they’re just going through the legal motions and already have a preferred candidate, or there isn’t really a job opening that needs to be filled immediately.

Basically, they’re fishing for followers and getting free attention through their job postings. And sometimes, it can come down to the person they hired was just a tad bit more qualified than you, but that they didn’t last for one reason or another.

I spoke to several employment specialists who prefer to remain anonymous that confirmed those suppositions.

However, they also noted that sometimes it’s the presentation of the CV or resume, social media activity (either not enough or some less than flattering posts), or they are dead set on a particular type of person to hire.

I also love that when you’re looking for a job the amount of unsolicited advice that you get from anyone and everyone about the way they found their “perfect job.”

Now, some of it is good advice, but some of it is that they were in the right place at the right time in front of the right person.

My personal recommendation is to have employment specialists look at your CV, resume, LinkedIn or Indeed profiles, and take their advice on what you could be doing better.

Then have someone you trust to be brutally honest comb through all your social media accounts and tell you what you should be deleting.

Once that’s all done, get in touch with a quality headhunting agency (or a few of them), and see if they can help. If you’re a C-Suite type player, enlist a professional headhunter that only deals on the executive level to play matchmaker for you.

During all of this, see if there is a passion that you haven’t explored yet and start working on becoming an expert at that. Or get deeper into a passion you’re already aware of. You never know when that passion could become a career.

That’s it for me! Ciao for Now!