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The Salary Tutor:

How to Make Your Job Search Less Stressful

A Few Simple Tips to Keep Your Sanity During the Interview Process

The Stress Timeline

Here’s the stressful timeline that happens if you don’t ask that question.

Monday: You go home filled with excitement over the interview.
Tuesday: You talk to some friends and tell them how well the interview went, saying there’s an outside chance you might hear something today.
Wednesday: You start checking your email and phone more often. What did they mean “a few days?” Does that mean two or three?
Thursday: OK, today is the day. Your significant other calls you in the afternoon to see if you’ve heard anything back yet. You haven’t. You start to get stressed and fear the worst. Maybe they found a better candidate. You don’t sleep well.
Friday: Still no word as the hours tick by. You think about calling or emailing HR to find out the status. So you ask your friends. “What do you think? Should I call them? Is that annoying?” Their general response is “They said they’d get back to you, so you better not bother them.” You start to stew a bit. “I can’t believe they haven’t gotten back to me yet. You know, I’m not sure if that’s such a great place to work anyway.” Your optimism starts to border on anger, and as you look up, it’s past 5pm and you’ve heard nothing.
Saturday and Sunday: Over the weekend it really starts to bother you. As you meet up with friends, they’re all excited to hear what happened with the big interview from Monday, but all you can say is that you thought it went well, but now you really have no idea.
Monday: You make it until 3pm without a response before finally breaking. You grab the phone or bring up your email, and in a worst-case scenario, fire off a response that has an undertone that you are annoyed that they said they would get back to you, but didn’t.

 

  • Jim Hopkinson

    Jim Hopkinson is an author, writer, and speaker living in New York City. His focus is on career development for the new economy, showing how new media, technology and branding are changing how people look at their career and lifestyle. Read more...