By Sheree Johnson
It’s hard to stay positive while you’re looking for work. Really hard.
You spend your days scrolling — LinkedIn, WineJobs, whatever board might be holding the thing you’re looking for — sending applications out into a silence you already know most of them won’t break. And you learn, quickly, that a lot of what you’re applying to isn’t even real. “Ghost jobs,” they call them: listings companies leave up to look like they’re growing, or to quietly collect résumés for a someday that may never come. You pour a little hope into each one anyway, because what’s the alternative? Most of that hope goes unanswered.
That part is hard enough. But honestly, it’s not the part that gets under my skin.
What’s truly demoralizing is being offered a fraction of what your work is worth. You spend years building a craft — learning it, refining it, earning the instincts that only come with time — and someone looks at all of it and offers you minimum wage. Not because they’ve misjudged your value, but because they’re betting a down market has made you desperate enough to accept it. That’s the part that stings. It isn’t a bad offer so much as a wager on your lowest moment.
And then, circling around all of it, the scammers.
Because nothing draws opportunists quite like a person who’s vulnerable and hopeful. The too-good-to-be-true offers. The “recruiters” who want your personal information before they’ll tell you anything real. The schemes designed to make a quick buck off someone who just wants honest work. So on top of everything else, you find yourself having to stay on guard — to treat every promising message with a little suspicion, to protect your information, your time, and your energy from people looking to take advantage. And that guardedness quietly chips away at the very hope you need to keep going.
So how do you stay grounded in all of this?
I’ve been sitting with that question, and here’s where I keep landing.
A lowball offer tells you everything about the employer and nothing about you. Your worth was set long before this market went sideways, and it isn’t up for renegotiation just because the timing is hard. The skills don’t evaporate because the economy tightened. The years don’t un-happen. What you’re capable of is exactly what you were capable of six months ago — the only thing that’s changed is how many people are trying to get it for less than it’s worth.
And a down market is a season, not a sentence. It’s a moment in time, not a verdict on your career. Seasons turn. They always do.
The scammers and the vultures, I’ve decided, don’t get to make me cynical. Cautious, yes — I’ll guard my information and trust my gut when something feels off. But I refuse to let a handful of bad actors convince me the good ones aren’t still out there, because they are. There are still companies that value skill, still people who deal honestly, still work worth doing.
And in the meantime, I keep my hands busy building — my own business, my own connections, my own next thing — because the fastest way I know to feel less powerless is to make something. To keep creating instead of only waiting to be chosen.
Mostly, I stay grounded by remembering that no job title was ever the true measure of me, and no bad offer gets to rewrite what I know I’m worth. This season is asking a lot. But it hasn’t changed who I am, or what I bring, or where I’m headed.
If you’re in this too, I hope you’ll hold onto the same. Don’t let a hard market tell you what you’re worth. It doesn’t get the final say. You do.
How do you stay grounded in all of this? I’d love to know.
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