WHY JOB HUNTING IS BASICALLY THE SAME AS DATING

Will they call, won’t they call? Am I being too needy? WHY DON’T THEY LIKE ME?!

Just a few of the crazy-ass questions that run through the minds of job hunters and/ or daters everywhere.

Having recently started a new job (as a content editor for an events company, if anyone’s interested), I am all too familiar with this state of near panic.

And on my many, many traipses up and down London to job interview, I had a lot of time to think about the similarities of impressing interviewers and impressing dates. Turns out it’s pretty much the same when you think about it for long enough.

First off, there are rules about when and how to communicate. For either situation, too much and you’re needy and reliant, too little and you’re not interested and unmotivated. I think it’s these mixed messages that are the root of all the anxiety. How do you be yourself whilst fighting all your natural urges to communicate (or not) and put on your best face all the time? 

Then there’s the look. You want to look natural and you want to feel comfortable – it makes sense. But then you agonise over what to wear, and what your outfit really says about you, wasting hours on trying to choose an outfit only to put back on option number one.

And then you run out of time to do your hair and make up properly so you end up looking significantly less put together than you would have liked anyway.

All of this comes down to being fundamentally terrified of rejection – because really what else is there to be afraid of? After all, we’re all nice, intelligent, interesting people with so much to offer whatever that may be.

It’s taken a while for me to learn that, as stupid as it sounds, whatever the situation the other people/ person is just as human and imperfect as I am. Literally, the only thing that’s being asked of us in the dating/ job interviewing world is that we hold a conversation like a normal human being. Which is not all that scary when you think about it like that. And if that conversation goes badly then chances are, you’re never gonna see them again anyway. Boy, bye 👋