If you are a graduate or about to graduate and are unemployed, then it is easy to concentrate on only one thing. That one thing being looking for a graduate job day and night. At Career Geek we encourage graduates to keep looking for a job, through different mediums i.e. traditional job search or social networks. But looking for a graduate job and doing the graduate job applications is a time consuming activity. It can easily burn you out and reduce your efficiency in making high quality job applications.

Avoid Graduate Job Hunt Burn Out

To avoid graduate job hunt burn out, here are 4 ways you can try to take your mind off, yet help boost your calibre.

Start a blog / make a website

Answer / Read on Quora

Volunteer for a charity or a start up

Try making web applications / Microsoft Office Applications

Here is explaining how.

1. Start a blog / make a website

You are reading a blog right now. I started this blog after I graduated and before I started my job. It’s as simple as that. Before this I used to blog for the Careers Service at the University of Leicester, where I detailed my job hunt and other activities related to the careers service.

Blogging and making a website is free to do for basic use. And it is quite interesting too. It helps you learn whilst you are doing the activity and there is no coding involved.

Skills to show employers – Time Management, project management, responsible worker, entrepreneurial, networking (through social media), communication skills, IT are some of the skills that you can show through this activity.

p.s. Try to avoid an all-out personal blog. Personal / professional – why not?

 2. Answer on Quora or Read Quora

Quora is an advanced, high quality and a well-followed answering community. In simple terms, it is like Yahoo Answers, except Quora answers are written by some of the top professionals in Silicon Valley: the CEO’s , MD’s , CFO’s, industry experts, and even people who invent things.

I’ve enjoyed my outings on Quora and learn quite a bit about topics I follow. Go there, and see if you can find your topics, start answering questions if you can.

Skills gained – networking, confidence to answer, increased knowledge on topics, improved understanding of topics, business knowledge are some of the skills gained to boost your calibre.

3. Volunteer for Charity / Start-up

Personally I don’t support unpaid internships. But in the case of charities, that makes a real difference to the society or start-ups which have no funding available yet, I support volunteering in some capacity (not full time though).

It is a good way to get knowledge of business right from the ground up

and it will give you experience of knowing your real value to a team. Volunteering is a multi-billion dollar industry, if a charity makes difference to society, be a part of it, it will help you de-stress a bit from the job hunting craziness.

Skills obtained to show employers – business communication, work experience, ethics of working, time management, responsible individual, work under changing dynamics, quick learner, team work.

4. Create Apps / Microsoft Office Applications

Just like blogging or website development, apps are the next in-thing at the moment. If you know how to make apps, try putting some thought into making one and who knows, you might get a few quid, get motivated and work better to do more?

If not, try using Microsoft Office to create some applications. For e.g. if you know Excel well, why not create some macro enabled sheets for your use or put them up for download which can help other students. Or making an Excel worksheet to plan exam study hours, etc. No big money, but at least you are racking your brains on something other than the jobhunt.

Skills gained – critical thinking, problem solving, providing solutions, taking initiative, project management.

Any Other?

These are some of the simple things you can try from your desktop or local street, to reduce the graduate job hunt burn-out. If there are other tips, do comment below and if you found the advice helpful, please use the sharing buttons below.