Anyone who has spent time out of work, or looking for a change in employment, knows that the job search process can be very stressful. You spend hours polishing your resume, writing cover letters, and filling out applications, only to face multiple rejections. The stress of it will get to you eventually. But can an extended job hunt really cause depression? Disturbingly, the research seems to suggest that it can.
Job Hunting and Mental Health
A 2013 study conducted by Gallup found that the longer adults in the U.S remain unemployed, the more likely they were to display signs of low psychological well-being. According to the study, one in five Americans who remains unemployed for more than a year has sought treatment for depression (Figure 1). The study also concluded that unemployed Americans are twice as likely to suffer from depression, compared to individuals with full-time jobs.
A separate study, conducted in 2010 and published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has dubbed the issue a ‘public health concern’, especially amongst young adults, and concludes that unemployed Americans are three times as likely to suffer from depression. To quote Mason Cooley, “Unemployment diminishes people”. And when you add job hunting anxiety of job hunting to this mix, the impact on your mental health is only going to get worse.
Why Job Hunting Can Get to You
Adrian Lindblad, a recent graduate, describes the job search process as “demoralizing”, stating that the frequent rejection makes him feel like, “there is something fundamentally wrong with me”. Adrian completed his undergraduate degree in 2020, entering into a job market that was suffering from twin ailments of an economic recession and a global pandemic. Speaking on the experience, Adrian says, “There were two things that would get to me every time. First, it was the number of applications that were rejected before I even scored an interview. Second, it was the anxiety and nervousness I felt when preparing for an interview because, by about six months into the process, I had a hard time convincing myself that I had anything to offer to potential employers”.
The feelings of anxiety and inadequacy that Adrian speaks about are a common fallout from long-term job hunting. While in a depressed state, your mind lies to you and tells you that you have no skills, no talent, and that you have nothing to contribute. Naturally, such feelings are going to hinder your ability to appear confident in interviews and market yourself. Thus, you end up caught in a vicious cycle of low self-esteem, leading to bad interview performances, which in turn, compounds your feelings of inadequacy. This feedback mechanism creates a conundrum where the longer you go without landing a job, the harder it weighs down on your mental and emotional health.
Coping with Job Search Depression
One of the real problems associated with this form of repeated rejection is that none of us are prepared for it, or trained in any way to deal with it. Nothing ever prepares us for the travails of job hunting. Society has conditioned our minds by rewarding the winners. We are told to deal with failure positively, but no one teaches us how to apply this in real life. When faced with successive job rejections, we equate them with our personal failures. It is no longer our resume that is being rejected; rather our identity and sense of self.
The dilemma of prolonged unemployment escalates further when you are a caregiver or have medical bills to take care of, which is exactly what millions of US citizens had to endure in 2020, owing to the repercussions of the pandemic. All of these issues are compounded making it hard to stay positive and keep