6 Ways Covid-19 Anxiety Affects Your Work or Job Search

Coronavirus anxiety is increasing as numbers surge across the US and around the globe.  As businesses shift, expand and close due to pandemic circumstances, it is especially hard hitting for executive job seekers trying to stay ahead of the game. Often it just seems that nothing is working and it’s easy to blame everything on the pandemic itself.  However, what many are discovering is that pandemic fatigue is leading to a negative attitude and that is actually what is having an adverse consequence on their daily work.  Some don’t even recognize it.  They just assume they are doing something wrong.  Let’s break it down and see if we can discover signs to look for.

Here are 6 signs that covid-19 anxiety is affecting your work or job search:

Procrastination

You procrastinate terribly to reach out to people you know to network and stay connected.  You have a lot to offer your colleagues and your call or email will be welcomed and they often appreciate hearing from you and might even have a job that’s a perfect fit.  Yet you don’t reach out. Why? Maybe you worry you won’t measure up. Maybe you feel like you will be a downer in reaching out. You may simply want to isolate. Many times this hesitation is fear and it hinders your work getting completed — especially if your work revolves around staying connected to your network and uncovering new resources.

You Don’t Ask For Help

Many of us are competitive people.  We believe we have the ability to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and plow through whatever obstacles are in our way all by ourselves.  That is until we can’t. And during the pandemic with even more challenges, it can be especially trying.  What many are discovering is the false narrative that they have to do it on their own.  Truth be told, they simply don’t.  Today many are bonding over the topic on everyone’s mind, the pandemic.  More than ever, they are willing to help others out and in fact enjoy doing so.  So don’t be fearful of asking for assistance.

You Avoid Outside Guidance

You resist formal and informal instruction that you know will help you. Have you signed up for training or executive coaching programs and not followed the guidance of the coach or consultant brought on for your professional development? This is often a big sign of self-sabotage done by those who don’t believe they are worthy of what they are receiving or will receive as a benefit of the training.  And during the pandemic there seems to also be more training required because of the different nature of working remotely or just the differences that many companies are seeing today.  So take advantage of all that is being offered to you.  Learn how to maximize the knowledge and use it successfully for your executive job search.​

Focusing on Problems Rather Than Solutions

You look for problems versus focus on solutions.  Do you feel heavy by everything that is going wrong at work? Have you lost the ability to see how something can work because you seem to zero in only on how something can’t work?  If these questions resonate with you, you may be resisting success by only pointing out what is the problem versus seeking the solution.  In a job search, this mental albatross can look like thinking no one wants to hire you since you were rejected by one opportunity. Or, perhaps you are assuming that no one will help you since you sent out a few emails that no one replied to.  Now isn’t the time to give up.  Get active and keep going.  Also, review your emails and see how you can improve upon them.  That might just be what is needed.

You Evaluate Challenges Incorrectly

You make small problems into bigger obstacles. Mistakes happen.  Problems occur. Vendors, clients, employees and managers all have situations not go smoothly.  There are people who make problems go away and then there are people who make problems bigger than what they are.

Which person are you? Looking back on recent obstacles, do you make them bigger than what they need to be?  Examples that this point can be affecting your job search will look like being extremely hard on yourself for replying in a not-so-perfect way in a job email, or making a misstep on an interview.

Now is the time to start taking aggressive action to overcome your corona anxiety and pandemic fatigue and change that negative attitude.  Often just recognizing the challenges is enough to make positive change.  So go out there and do it and change that negative mindset into a positive one that can land you your next great job.

This guest post was authored by Lisa Rangel

Lisa is the Founder and Managing Director of Chameleon Resumes LLC the premier executive resume writing and job landing consulting firm named a Forbes Top 100 Career Website.  As a Cornell University graduate, she is also a Certified Professional Resume Writer, Job Landing Consultant & 13-year Recruiter. Lisa was also a paid Moderator for LinkedIn’s Premium Groups for eight years.

She has been featured in Fortune, Inc., CNN Business, Fast Company, Business Insider, Forbes, LinkedIn, CNBC, Time Money, BBC, Newsweek, Crain’s New York, Chicago Tribune, eFinancialCareers, CIO Magazine, Monster, US News & World Report, Good Morning America, Fox Business News, New York Post, and other reputable media outlets. Rangel has authored 16 career resources found at joblandingacademy.com