With bills to pay and responsibilities to meet, oftentimes, the default reaction to unexpected unemployment is to dive right into finding a new position, spending all hours filling out applications and scrambling to network. Experts warned, however, that taking this approach and failing to take care of yourself during the job hunt can impede the process.
“It's a real need to have a job and be financially stable [and people] think that that should supersede the need to look after yourself, but what I find is when people let go of looking after themselves, they often come to a stage of burnout,” warned Jeeda Alhakim, a specialist counseling psychologist and senior lecturer at City St George's, University of London, who has worked on projects around aid workers’ mental health.
Right now, she believes there is an overall sense of despondency and helplessness among job seekers in the aid and development sectors. That’s related to the swarm of job losses that have come in the wake of the Trump administration’s downsizing of USAID and other government agencies alongside aid cuts in other countries, forcing many NGOs to impose layoffs. This is creating an oversaturated job market, making job searching right now more fraught. With this in mind, it’s even more crucial that job seekers take steps to protect their overall health and well-being, experts said.