It's a cruel summer....

Yes... that was a reference to Ace of Base, and I realize that some of you may not even know who that is!?!  I am just using a little humour to lighten the mood in this cruel employment season!

You may be suffering from a cruel summer if:

• you haven't heard back on an interview process in over a week
• you've been involved in an interview process for over 2 months, and are waiting with baited breath for yet another stage of interviews
• you are applying to jobs and your resume is being sucked into the black hole / vortex, never to be heard of again
• you are sweating to the oldies, in your suit for a job interview in 40degree weather
• you have had an interview cancelled or re-scheduled at the last minute due to cottage brain

There is no cure for summer - except to relax and enjoy it.  You can only control your own actions, so don't spend time fretting over what other people are or are not doing. 

Here are some simple facts for candidates to remember:

1. Kids are off on holidays from school - that puts added pressure on parents (your interviewers), who are focusing on getting home earlier, vacation arrangements, and organizing chaos at home.
2. It's Cottage season!!!  Forget about the Friday afternoon interviews... and your audience won't be focused on Monday mornings for the most part either.
3. Not everyone can take vacation on the same week.  SO - this means that processes will take longer, as if you have multiple stakeholders to meet in a company, there will be delays between meetings due to scheduling issues.
4. People are busy!!  Summer is often a big build up for organizations who are focused on performance heading into busy season (Back to School / Fall Baking Season to name a few), and they are usually doing it a few people short in their departments.... because of vacations.
5. Sign off is a very important part of any hiring process; someone has to approve your big fat paychecks!  This person also may be on vacation at some point this summer, which may hold up your processes further.

So when these reasons... or others similar to the  above become a source of frustration for you in your job search, the most important thing to remember is that it's not personal, and you can't do anything about any of these things.  Hiring processes take almost twice as long in the summer; people have lives, they are distracted, and despite you needing them to help you get a job, it's not going to do you any good to stress about it, or hound them, or any of those futile actions which will only alienate people.

Sit back, enjoy the summer, go with the flow, and good things will happen.  You can't force someone to hire you, and you can't make things go quicker.  You can endear people to you by being patient, and being respectful of other people's hard earned time off.

Have a great summer!!!!