🇬🇧 I am moving, officially!
Where? When?
If you want the Italian posts, you can find them all here: SEZIONE ITALIANA🇮🇹. If you prefer reading in English, then please keep going with this post.
Good afternoon, my lovely readers!
Oh my days, everything is happening all at once. So much for the slow living! I am doing my best to keep things simple, but sometimes we just cannot. And it’s ok, we are human and we cannot always have things going our way. We do our best.
This is, I am moving, it’s decided. End of the year (or so.. I won’t move on the 31st of December I promise haha). All this alongside looking for a new job. I have endless possibilities, endless places I can move to (within my current budget), endless types of places I could rent, and endless applications I could send. The reason why I am very very very overwhelmed is because of the word “endless”. The presence of an abundance of choice is what throws me off course. It kinda paralyses me. this or that? or that other one? It paralyses me because I know I want the best for myself, hence what option should I choose? What if it turns out not to be the best one? do I compromise on the job opportunities and move to a place I love or do I move to a city where I have more opportunities but it’s more expensive to live in now that I do not have that job opportunity in my hands yet? What if I don’t find a job I like for a few months and I struggle to live if the place is expensive?
An example of my mind racing: Ok maybe better to rent a room in a nice house, as I will move there by myself for a few months, I can socialise more, I want it right in the town centre, and very nice not like the standard rental properties. The price goes up, I know, but I live better, as long as it’s within budget. Or…what about finding a place in between cities so I could commute? Yeah ok but then I need a car, and my car is in another country at the moment, I still need to sort that out. If I take the car with me straight away, I would need to drive it across Europe 3 times, as I would need it back in Italy in a few months time, once I find a bigger place with my boyfriend, so I can take my dog with me to the UK (flying with dogs is just mental). So some extra costs to take into consideration. Mm.
Guys, the struggle is real, for real.
In between looking for rooms to rent I am also sending applications and receiving rejections after rejections. It’s a little bit disheartening. Mm. I match qualifications and experience and I never get to the next stage. They told me it was because of AI. It’s not enough crafting a CV for EVERY job application, alongside the covering letter and all the info needed, we have to use the EXACT SAME WORDS present in the job description in the skill section and the other parts of our CVs. Did you know about this? Did you know that ATS (applicant tracking systems or similar) do the screening and you can be the best applicant but if you can paraphrase (it’s also a very good skill to have!!) you are automatically out??
I did write: Scientific writing skills (posters, essays, lab reports, dissertations,..)
The job description said: Ability to draft scientific documents.
To re-write the skill: Scientific document writing (posters, essays, lab reports, dissertations,..)
Not a fun of this new way of using AI. At all! Anyway, we can only adjust and do our best to get these shiny CVs and covering letters appealing.
Some companies ask you put the list of education and employment history in the application form, along with uploading the CV, which has the exact same information. But WHY WHYY??? Again, all this is something we cannot control. What we can control is how we deal with this. The truth though is I am so eager to find a new job that every rejection is hard to deal with. I have a few applications to make, and a few days available, if anyone has any advice on how to deal with the overwhelm I feel when I see all those open tabs and things to do, please let me know!
I need to relax now, will come back later :)
Wow, that is a lot. Ten days or so have passed since I wrote the first part of this post. It is intense. I wanted to delete it and just write this second part today, with advice I had the pleasure of receiving the past week. I wanted to delete it as it’s difficult to read even for me, I can feel the stress evaporating from the words as they form sentences. I wanted to delete it, but then I decided it might be good to share the overwhelmed part of myself, as it can inspire someone going through the same right now. It’s not easy, is it!?
I feel a lot better now as I have sought professional help to guide me through this job hunt. I spoke with a career advisor who helped me a lot. I had a revelation after the last session I had with her, after she mirrored what she thought I was doing according to her point of view, and her description was VERY close to my example of mind racing I had written at the beginning of the post!
Thank you immensely for being here supporting me and my work. Your support means the world to me, and keeps me going during those days I feel tired and unmotivated. If you would like to receive these newsletters directly to your inbox consider subscribing <3
I'm telling you this because I want it to be a reminder to check in with yourself sometime and get help. Get help, and don’t be ashamed of it. If I hadn’t attended those appointments with a career advisor, it would probably have taken a lot longer for me to realise that I was doing a little bit too much and going a little bit too fast. So it is important to surround ourselves with people who can support us, professionally and non-professionally.
Indirectly, she showed me that reaching a goal doesn't necessarily mean we need to take the most common route. We can try, but then if that doesn't work for us, we can choose a different route, even if that means going to another place first before reaching our destination. It's all part of the journey, remember?
Let me know in the comments anything you want to share with us about your experiences and your personal growth and development 🤍 Let's nurture this community where we uplift and inspire one another 🤲🏻☺️
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I hope with all my heart that we will meet face-to-face someday. Until then, if nobody has told you yet today: you are an amazing person and deserve everything this world has to offer 🤍
Annalisa x
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