4 Ways Therapy Helps Students Cope with the Stress of Job Hunting
Published March 28th, 2024
4 min read
Therapists can help ease uncertainty and anxiety for students who are stressed out, while looking for jobs.
Written by Simon Spichak
According to a survey by the Marie Christie Institute, 40 percent of graduates feel that their education hasn’t adequately prepared them to transition into the workforce. Psychotherapy can help fill the gap—therapists are uniquely equipped to address mental health and career anxiety. Visiting a therapist before graduation could even be free for students still in school with their student insurance plan.
Here are four ways therapists can help students with the stresses of finding their first job.
Help students figure out their values
Values clarification is a psychotherapy exercise often used as part of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) that helps people figure out the beliefs and values they hold most important.
Figuring out these values and beliefs can help clarify what sorts of jobs or careers might be fit and open up doors to new career pathways that students haven’t considered before. Through a reflective process, a therapist can also help students work through some beliefs that may keep them from applying to their dream jobs.
2. Teaching skills to cope with uncertainty
Students send dozens or hundreds of applications just to get a job interview. Often, they won’t receive a response for any of these applications, which is extremely frustrating.
A student might become anxious about not sending out enough applications or editing their resume well enough. As a result, they’ll be staying up all night, sending out applications until they crash. They might make mistakes because they’re tired and think they need to send out even more applications to compensate.
Therapists can help students learn to thrive in uncertainty and break out of harmful stress-induced cycles by validating their concerns and shifting focus to what they can control instead of what they can’t.
3. Work through interview anxiety
Treating anxiety is a therapist’s bread and butter.
Therapists who have a lot of experience working with students understand how to apply different types of therapy, including CBT and dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), to help students manage their intrusive thoughts about the interview or social anxiety.
Here are a few ways therapists can help prep them for an interview:
Running through mock interview scenarios
Teaching students how to avoid ruminating on anxious thoughts during the process
Break down the root of their interview anxiety and teach them breathing strategies to help counteract the physiological effects
4. Prevent burnout during the job hunt
Ultimately, the job hunt is a marathon and not a sprint.
Regularly seeing a therapist throughout the final year of college or university can help build a repertoire of skills, tools, and healthy habits that students can use to cope with the uncertainties and stress of the job hunt. While many schools have career counsellors, they aren’t always equipped with the training that can help students with their job hunt.
At Resolvve, our psychotherapists have had extensive experience working with students who have career concerns and are looking to address them in a healthy way. For students enrolled in colleges and universities in Ontario, this also means that their student insurance heavily subsidizes the cost of the therapy.
Are you interested in speaking with a therapist about career concerns? You can book an appointment online with us here.
If you’re interested in expanding the support your educational institution or organization offers for students about to graduate, please email info@resolvve.ca to see how we can help.
Please note that this post is written for educational purposes; it is not therapy. If you need to talk to a professional, please book a consultation with a psychotherapist through Resolvve.
