An Introvert’s Job Hunt and Related Reflections
By: Sneha Koshy
Tags: Empowerment, Networking, Blog, Reflections, Personal Development

A graphic from the New York Times article, The Plight of the Office Introvert.

During a particularly boring Business Studies class in Grade 9, I told my friend emphatically, “There is no way I am going to study anything business-related in university.” I believed it in my soul. I couldn’t see how I, an introverted person, would fit into a world that ran on building connections through networking, i.e. talking confidently and comfortably with strangers. And yet, 9 years later, here I am having studied International Business both at the undergraduate and master’s level. My interest in this area grew slowly. I realised I wanted something that combined my fascination with global affairs and the why behind a business or consumer’s actions. While I thoroughly enjoyed diving deeper into these domains, my introversion kept a wall between me and the networking maven I wished I could be.

It took, and continues to take, a great deal of effort for me to put myself out there in any social situation. I remember the debilitating anxiety I would feel before and during the few networking events I attended over the course of my undergraduate program. It would take a lot of effort for me to psych myself up enough to consider attending. However, I forced myself to attend these events and stumble through awkward conversations that made me wish the ground would devour me whole. Over time, I reached a point where I felt comfortable enough to mask my discomfort and focus instead on my ultimate goal of understanding industries firsthand from people who were already in the workforce. My progress was slow, caterpillar slow, but I eventually achieved things I didn’t think possible. I got into a master’s program at a great business school, I was able to foster lasting and meaningful friendships with my classmates, and I was able to succeed in an environment that at times required me to attend multiple networking sessions after a full day of classes. This may not seem like much to most people, but I never thought I would reach a stage where I would be able to somewhat seamlessly enter and exit ten-people conversations, or even connect with people on LinkedIn as a result.

My progress made me optimistic for the Everest ahead of me: the job hunt that began more than a year before I graduated from my master’s program. Although it was a stressful process, I still remained positive about its outcome and tried hard to remember that the intensity of recruitment season networking was temporary. I was not naïve, I knew networking wouldn’t end as a whole once I got a job, but certainly the intensity with which we were expected to network when initially looking for a job, would wane once we got our foot on that first rung. However, as the months passed, I found myself getting discouraged that the job hunt was taking longer than I expected. The networking process was slowly burning me out, and it was around then that COVID-19 took hold on a global scale and was classified as a pandemic.

The resulting economic slump meant extremely qualified and competent people were losing their jobs and having to re-enter a job market and networking space that was competitive enough as it was. It’s been hard not to become increasingly disillusioned by the process, and even harder to persevere with networking and pursue my continuing personal goal to not be intimidated by it. I’ve gone through days of extreme productivity followed by days of the complete opposite. My personal growth curve when it came to networking seemed steeper than ever before. Despite already being quite a self-critical person to begin with, I had probably never been harder on myself than I have been during these months. The isolation that has come with this pandemic caused me to regress further into my introversion than I allowed myself to in years. And with that regression, came increased anxiety surrounding networking, especially as a new graduate without the support system a business school provides in the form of networking events and other career management resources.

What is most exasperating is that introversion feels somehow simultaneously both within and outside your control. It is possible for me to suppress my fatigue and anxiety, but not for long. And the longer I have gone without the forced socializing that is networking, the harder it has been to restart it. The same with anything you do because it’s good for you, rather than because you enjoy it (see: working out). It became a vicious and self-destructive cycle: realising I should be networking more, getting frustrated with myself, feeling overwhelmed and demotivated by how little I was doing, taking a break from the job hunt because I felt discouraged and disappointed in myself — this would in time lead back to the cycle being perpetuated.

What this pandemic has reminded me through my job hunting experience is that life has ebbs and flows. The economy at large is currently in a state of contraction, but in time, it will start expanding again. It is not sustainable or feasible for any economy to just go through ceaseless expansion. Arable land is intentionally left fallow to regenerate nutrients, because it is understood that doing this increases crop yields over time. Individually, we all go through periods of productivity and periods of inertia. And that should be okay. Our world had become a place of no rest, and those who did stop to recharge, were left behind. Burnout has become a common enough term in corporate spaces because of how many people it affected.

Personally, I have recognised that going through this period of introversion has recharged me and given me the mental space to critically contemplate my life in every aspect — be it my career, my faith, or my relationships. Of course, the comforts I possess that allow me this season of introspection do not go unnoticed. Undoubtedly, I enjoy many privileges that others do not — I have the luxury to seek job enrichment and fulfilment and apply selectively; I am at an early stage in my career and do not have any financial dependents; I have a strong support system of friends and family; and I am able to opt to protect my health and stay home as recommended.

With that in mind, I have learned how important it is to be patient with myself and the season I am in. I cannot hold myself to the standards of a world that, in many ways, does not exist anymore. I cannot idealise how things were and how I was, wishing it could go back to normal. Normal had its own cracks and fissures that have become all too apparent now. That’s not to say that ambition and striving for growth is an inherently bad thing. It becomes bad, however, when it morphs into unrelenting self-deprecation that if I’m honest, made me less productive and regress in some ways. In my particular job hunting and networking journey, I am trying hard to be patient and take it one day at a time rather than extrapolating a day’s activity to derive negative implications about my value as a person. There will still be days that I will do the latter and I will not feel like rationalising my frustration away with all the realisations above. But that’s where patience comes in. My fellow introverts, we may never know of each other because of obvious reasons (i.e., we don’t enjoy talking about such deeply personal matters very often or with just anyone), but just know that you can succeed in a world made for extroverts. There are unique skills and perspectives that we bring to the table, and it’s worth making the space and taking the time we need for us to reach our fullest potential.