When Things are Tough: Stalemate

by Serge Thomas

As your career develops in Washington, D.C., or any other place, there will be a time when you happen to be in a rut.

Let me paint a picture. You have a job that offers interesting work. You are doing well, and your values align with the organization’s mission. However, as new people join the organization, they begin doing things that you wanted to do when you arrived, and are getting promoted within just a few months. Meanwhile, your workload increases and a sense of dissatisfaction creeps into your mind.

You conclude that you need a change, and you quietly begin reaching out to your connections to find a new job. Things are progressing smoothly, and a few opportunities are within your grasp. You continue to go to work and deliver results, until one day you find out that due to budget cuts, you will be let go. Even worse, you have a new problem: none of the opportunities you’ve pursued have offered you a job, and now you are out of work.

For most people this is an awful position in which to find oneself. The challenge is to find work before things become financially worse. If there is one thing I would stress to anyone facing this kind of situation it is that you should always find ways to keep busy. Career stalemates don’t last forever, but they can be a challenge to overcome.

Keeping busy can be more than just volunteering. It can also mean finding project work that pays and builds skills while searching for work. Few employers will object to a person keeping active during a long-term job search. They only get concerned if you are not doing anything about not finding work at all. In fact, taking on temporary projects to build skills and develop an income can actually work to your advantage and demonstrate a strong sense of initiative.

The greatest enemy that you will fight in these times of in-between and stalemate is your own feelings of self-doubt and frustration. While people will say that you cannot give into it, we are all human beings, and the feeling of being left out hurts us all. In Washington, there is a great need to be active and feel a sense of belonging. This city’s in constant motion, and has little time for inactivity. Keeping busy can keep you alive! This is especially true when you aren’t seeing movement in job applications and interviews.

In my first writing, I wrote about taking care of yourself physically, and mentally. This piece builds on this narrative, and adds another point, which is this: your spiritual health is just as important; what I describe above can be a spiritual challenge. I recommend meditation, prayer, or anything that creates and maintains balance in your life. For young and mid-career professionals, these are trying times in searching for work-let alone keeping it.

View a stalemate as a wall, and smash it!

Serge Thomas is a nonprofit and political professional living in Silver Spring, MD. He worked on the Mitt Romney 2012 Presidential Campaign and on state legislative races in two states at the grassroots level.