The Feeling Nobody Talks About in a Job Search

In 2010, a good friend and I did what naive 22-year-olds with more confidence than qualifications do... We started a business. Specifically, a social media agency, back when helping a small business get on Facebook or Twitter was still a novel enough idea that our youth was actually an advantage. We were young enough to have grown up on these platforms, which made us more credible in those conversations than we probably deserved to be.

Like most bootstrapped startups, the early days were long. We were figuring out how to sell an unfamiliar service to business owners twice our age, learning as we went, and compensating for our lack of experience the only way available to us — by simply working more hours than we probably needed to. We had fewer obligations back then, so burning the midnight oil felt manageable. Even exciting, for a while.

But several months in, something shifted. The long days started to feel less energizing and more draining. I remember a growing sense of discontent that I couldn't quite name. A flatness. A slight disconnection from the work, even as I was putting in the hours. Mixed in was some anxiety about whether any of it was going to work, and an underlying boredom in the grind. I wasn't ready to quit. I wasn't completely checked out. But I wasn't fully in it either. I just didn't have a word for what I was feeling.

Then one evening, my business partner and I went to dinner at a spot in the Haymarket district in downtown Lincoln, Nebraska. It was a weeknight, the place wasn't busy, so we had the kind of dinner where you're not in a hurry. Somewhere in that conversation, we started reminiscing about the last several months — the hustle of it, the stumbles, and the small wins we'd almost forgotten about. Then, quite naturally, the conversation turned forward. We started talking about where the business could go. The clients we wanted to work with. The kind of company we were trying to build. The possibility of it all.

I left that dinner feeling completely recharged. Not because anything had changed. Not because we'd solved a problem or made a plan. But because I had reconnected to the vision of what we were actually working toward. That reminder was the recharge.

Naming That Feeling

Just this past Friday, I was working out of a coffee shop with my wife Clancy. I mentioned offhandedly that I didn't have a word for this feeling I kept running into throughout my career. She looked up and said, "Ennui."

I'll admit I had to ask her to spell it. Pronounced "ahn-WEE," ennui is defined as a feeling of listless weariness, slight boredom, and dissatisfaction that comes from a lack of interest or engagement. Clancy has always had a better vocabulary than I do, so it didn't surprise me she knew this word, but it fit perfectly. That's exactly what I'd been experiencing across those different chapters, and what I hear from job seekers without having the language for it.

Ennui in the Job Search

What I've found, every time I've felt ennui, is that the antidote is the same... Check back in on the vision.

Homework: A Vision Check-In

For a job seeker, it could be revisiting; What does the role look like that you're trying to land? What kind of work brings out your best energy? What does your professional life look like when you're genuinely engaged in it?

Writing those answers down, or scanning again if you already have them, has a way of restoring something that the day-to-day grind quickly depletes. It reconnects effort to outcome. It reminds you that you're moving toward something, even when the path feels long.

Work has the potential to be more than a paycheck. At its best it gives us a sense of purpose, a way to contribute, a reason to keep showing up. Keeping that possibility in view, especially during a stretch as uncertain as a job search, is one of the more useful things you can do for your own energy. A vision has a long-term lens by nature. It reminds you to look forward, not backward.

If you've been feeling a version of what I've been trying to describe, that slight angst, weary, disconnected state... maybe now you have a word for it too. And maybe more importantly, you have a practice for working through it.