Make Job Searching a Game

As you may remember, I have two daughters in the New York City Public School System.

Now that my younger daughter is starting 8th grade, I’m embarking on my 2nd needlessly complicated, impossible to explain to anyone outside of the 5 boroughs – New York City High School Process.

With my type a, overfunctioning wind at my back – I have this complex project tightly organized in all the Google shared docs and, mind you, the process hasn't even officially begun.

But I also have another secret weapon to help us along: My kid and the joy and creativity she brings to life.

When I asked her to sit down to watch a pre-recorded virtual tour for a high school one summer evening we were on our own, she said, “Only if we can make it a game.”

This isn’t exactly how my brain works (unless we’re talking Hunger Games) so at that moment I was unclear how that would even look.

Choosing curiosity instead of doubt, I asked…how might we do that?

“Let’s make a High School Tour Bingo Card!” She said “And as we hear the words that come up on our card, we can mark them off to see who gets Bingo first. ”

Uhm…brilliant – and more fun than I expected.

So we made two different bingo cards with the words/phrases in different spots so we could play against each other.

"Rigor"

"Restorative Justice"

"Inclusive"

"College Acceptance Rates"

"Put us first on your list!"

All made it to the final cards.

We played our first round. She won and we were successful at making a pretty boring thing that we have to do into something that turned out to be pretty fun.

While you may not believe me at first, the same is possible with your job search.

You can gather a few friends who are also job searching and compete on how many people you’re reaching out to.

You can see how many times you can drop your elevator pitch into a conversation in one day as you’re going about your workday, errands and social gatherings.

Or – you can see how many people you can help with their respective careers and job searches in a week for a feel-good experience of giving back in this process.

What other ways can you make your search joyful, fun – even like a game?

Feel free to send me your ideas so I can share them with the folks who are in the muddy slog of it all.

As always – if you need support in your transition or your search, feel free to sign up for a complimentary 30-min zoom call to learn more about coaching.