As we reach the final day of 2024, it's the perfect time to reflect.

At the start of the year, ZenSearch (not even named that yet) was my third priority after job searching and a freelance project.

Although I had several interviews each week, and many where I made the final round, I struggled to land a job.

Three separate times fabulous connections with the prospective hiring manager were made, only to have them tell me that they were leaving the company... ending their strong advocacy and with it my candidacy.

I faced unprovable but undeniable ageism, repeatedly being told that I was "not a good culture fit."

I was ghosted by one company after 7 rounds of interviews.

It was frustrating and demoralizing.

With each day, I could feel my energy and enthusiasm draining away.

At a certain point, I realized what gave me hope, what I most looked forward to. It was ZenSearch.

I loved our concept of creating a job search tool that puts the job seeker first.

I loved the excitement of building something from scratch, of seeing my ideas quickly realized and released.

I loved collaborating with my cofounder, especially as we pushed each other to try new things, learn, and evolve.

It wasn't a difficult decision to abandon looking for a job to focus 100% on ZenSearch.

Starting a company isn't for everyone, but for me, it's been awesome.

What I've learned about myself this year:

I'm a good writer. I've written over 50 posts on LinkedIn, publishing 2-3 per week. I remember how terrified I was to hit the Post button for the first time. It still gives me a little buzz but in a good way! (My advice: if you're thinking about starting to post, stop thinking and just do it)

I'm resilient. When things seemed hopeless, I found a way to turn it into something hopeful. (My advice: consider if there's a benefit to pivoting) I made a large change, but a small tweak might be all you need. What used to work may not be the best anymore. Be open to that.

It's okay to be uncomfortable. Our first few releases made me cringe. But because it was out there and being used, we were able to get valuable feedback and improve. (My advice: take action and iterate)

I get things done. Whether it's adding companies to our platform (over 10,000 and counting), finding creative ways to grow our user base, or uncovering differentiators, I'm on it. (My advice: take ownership of what you can control)

ZenSearch has grown so much this year, and I have too.

Thank you to everyone who has used ZenSearch, given us feedback, interacted with my posts, or helped us in any way.

I'm so excited to see this year's progress and I'm looking forward to helping more people find jobs in 2025!

Check us out at ZenSearch.jobs and share our platform with anyone looking for something new. Together, we can make job searching a little more zen.