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Coping with Depression During Your Job Search, with Ashley Watkins
Podcast

Coping with Depression During Your Job Search, with Ashley Watkins

Find Your Dream Job podcast

Mac Prichard and Ashley Watkins
Mac's List, 2020
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Editorial Rating

7

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  • Overview
  • Engaging

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In this Find Your Dream Job podcast, host Mac Prichard interviews former corporate recruiter and current job coach Ashley Watkins, who explains why so many people experience depression while they’re hunting for a job. She provides many specific and actionable recommendations for successful job search that can help you avoid falling into a depression in the first place. Her guidance on what to do if you’re already experiencing depression is a little less clear and not particularly groundbreaking – but still worthwhile. Although Watkins at times veers into self-promotion by discussing her current practice, she is more often empathetic, encouraging and helpful. 

Summary

Job searches can be emotionally draining.

Hunting for a job requires time and effort. Repeated rejections are discouraging. Many people internalize those rejections and start to feel like failures, even if really it’s just that their résumés or networking strategy needs tweaking. Depression is more than just passing sadness or workweek dread. It can be a much longer-term challenge that spirals and impedes success. Feelings of worthlessness or profound sorrow, an inability to function, and an inability to “snap out of it” are all hallmarks of depression.

Job searches carry a stigma that makes discussing them challenging. 

A surprising number of people experience depression while job hunting. People who find themselves on the job market with little notice – such as after a layoff – are prone to depression. They have...

About the Podcast

Mac Prichard is the founder of the job board Mac’s List. In this Find Your Dream Job podcast, he interviews Ashley Watkins, a certified résumé writer and job coach based in Alabama.

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