What are you willing to compromise? 🤔
2026
3/27/20263 min read
Ah, how nice it feels to be writing to you again!
As I said last week, these last few months have been quite intense in many ways. My job search period was particularly grueling, because I had to live in full-on survival mode, hyper-focused on the goal of getting a job.
The quest felt larger than life, because I wasn’t just searching for any random job, nor was I continuing along an already established career.
At least these factors made my job search challenging:
It hasn’t been that long since I graduated, so I’m still technically at the start of my career, and the job market for junior roles is pretty tough at the moment.
My professional network is still almost nonexistent here in France.
I’m still figuring out my professional identity so I wasn’t searching in just one domain or position, but I was open to many different kinds of work, which also meant I had to adapt my CVs and motivation letters many times to fit every employer’s needs.
Most of my existing professional experience comes from working in positions relating to cultural content or event production, but I really felt like working in a more commercial position for a change, like in marketing or sales—and making a career pivot is never a given.
I really wanted to work remotely so I could visit my close ones in Finland relatively easily, but the competition for (especially English-speaking) remote junior roles is very tight.
But what do you know, the job that fit the bill came along!
So I guess being hyper-focused pays off, but it definitely requires extensive prioritizing and being at ease with delayed gratification.
It forces you to think about which parts of life are worth compromising on and which aren’t.
Obviously, the most important parts of life are never worth compromising on.
For example, I could’ve decided to just seclude myself and see no one, but I still made an effort to sustain a relatively decent social life.
I tried to remind myself how much meaning connecting with others gives to my life even if my professional life was hanging by a thread.
Especially on my lowest days when my sense of self-worth was wavering, seeing a friendly face made me feel valued again.
Many people encouraged me directly, but most of the time they didn’t even have to say or do anything particularly encouraging.
Just the fact that they continued to treat me as nicely as they’ve always treated me reminded me that the people who care about me the most don’t really care about which job I get—all they care about is that I could be myself and be happy.
So I definitely couldn’t have made it through this period without the support of my friends and family. You all know who you are.
I haven’t had the strength to respond to all your messages within a decent amount of time these last few months, but you can be sure that it’s still meant a lot to know you’re there to back me up. ❣️
…
Now, even though I didn’t compromise on the most important parts of my life during my job search, I did compromise on many other less important things.
So I’ll write more on that next week.
For now, I try to remind myself many times a day that truly, I’m finally slowly coming out of my perilous situation.
Just a few weeks ago I was still in complete survival mode without much light at the end of the tunnel.
Of course, I know there are much worse perils people can suffer from in this world, but at least on the scale of my life, this was one of the biggest perils I’ve faced so far.
(Peril is a funny word, by the way. And now I’ve written it too many times so it looks weird.😆)
Even though the biggest peril is behind me, I still have the apartment market to conquer in order to establish my life here in Paris.
So we’ll see what happens on that front, but for now I wish you an elegant weekend!
Bisous,
Elle