Lemmylefty, 2 years ago

“How’s the job search coming?” is usually meant to be encouraging, but it can feel like a stab in the back if you read it as “still unemployed, huh?”

What can help is to approach this from a “seen any job opening that piques your interest?” view. Think of 2-3 positions, locations, etc., that you can talk about with some interest. Maybe you’ve never worked in that field, so you tell the person that you hadn’t considered it before and what might draw your interest, or there’s an opening in a city/place you’ve never been and you can talk about that. Most people aren’t looking for the spiel, so this satisfies them without embarrassing either of you.

This doubles as practicing interview questions (“why do you want this job?”) that you’ll need in the future, anyways.