Not long ago I’ve encountered this question from a connection I have on Twitter.
It’s hard to deal with a “no” from a company you applied. It’s harder when the refusal comes from several companies for several weeks. I know it because I’ve been there.
But that’s not the end.

In the following reading, I don’t pretend to know all about job hunting, I just want to share my own experience while I was seeking a job and I can tell you it’s difficult to find one with 40+ years. I’ll summarize it in 4 points.

The struggle is real.

I always admitted that a circumstance is something real. So the struggle is real, the frustration and the fear of tomorrow are real as well. I learn to cope with it by looking at the future, focusing on the present situation and use what I have in my hands and at hand.

Have a mental escape plan!

After almost one month of refusals I needed to accept that my brain, emotions and focus were about to crush. My self-confidence was shaken, my focusing to work on the small projects was almost lost, so I did something out of normal, for me at least it was uncommon: I stopped the job hunting!
I start focusing on my family, giving them a more special place in my attention and make it my safe place. Not the feelings I was dealing with after receiving the refusals. Which brings me to the third point of my story.

What you feel is real! What you are is different!

A lot of birds are flying over, not all of them has to have a nest on your head. The feelings you have doesn’t tell who you are. If you feel uncomfortable for not coding a day that doesn’t make you a bad developer. It’s just a day without coding. Period. What you feel is not who you are. It’s not a smart decision to allow a circumstance to dictate what you should feel and we shouldn’t let people validate who we are!

You design your future.

The last thing I want to share with you is about planning. No! It’s not a schedule and I promise, I won’t ask you a thing.
After pausing all the thoughts about job hunting and just be with my family, all the bad feelings were gone. All the questions of what I was doing bad disappeared. I had the strength to look forward and I stopped imagine scenarios of the past interviews where all went bad.
I rewrote the Resume and start applying... again.
At the end of this story, I want to tell you something: you are on your own in this journey. What I mean by this is nobody will do the job hunting for you. Your future is designed by your decisions. Choose wise! Oh... and I lied! I said I won’t ask anything. I do: please apply! To as many companies you can.

Stay strong, stay focused and stay blessed!
Luc.

I am Luc a 40+ age junior developer, if you would like to be part of my journey, you can follow me here on Twitter.