Projectless. It’s a real word now. As an IT project consultant, you sometimes experience periods without projects or job offers. Sometimes it is seasonal (Companies usually don’t start up a new project during Christmas and Summer Holiday season), and sometimes it’s simply because no one is hiring. It happens. In 2015 I went through several months of no-projects-for-me, and since I was quite new to the consultant business, I had to learn how to tackle those periods – the hard way. It’s my hope that others in this situation can use these experiences, for inspiration, or at least for knowing that you are not alone.
I realized I had to do something. I had to get away from the mindset of focusing on not having a project, and I needed to find something else. In the beginning I would have focused on test-related things, but at this point I decided that I needed to just focus on me and do something beneficiary for my health. Testing was put on a shelf for a little while.
Stage 4. Despaired some more
I began to worry that I was heading towards stress… As in, medical stress, not the everyday “Oh my god I’m so stressed”. I had problems sleeping at night, I never made it to an interview even though several people confirmed that my CV was great. My colleagues were great at supporting me and told me that a new project would come any day now. Some days it helped, most days it didn’t. I felt horrible.. At his point even my friends had stopped joking about how wonderful it had to be to stay at home while getting paid.