We’re almost five months into the Covid-19 pandemic—with no end in sight. Our nerves are frayed and tension runs high. If you’re in between jobs, panic may be setting in right about now. You read about 53 million Americans filing for unemployment benefits since March and start fearing that it may take many more months to get a new job. In the back of your mind, there’s palpable worries that you may never find another job or it won’t be anywhere near the level and salary of your last position.
Tough times make tough people. This is a uniquely brutal job market unlike anything we’ve seen before. What worked in the past won’t necessarily work today. You have to cultivate, develop and execute these three skills to survive and thrive in this unprecedented, cruel job market.
You Need To Have Grit
Grit is defined as possessing perseverance, fortitude and resilience. It’s building a coat of armor around you to endure and withstand the blows that you’ll take. Grit is the steely determination to make yourself strong and impervious to the challenges you encounter. It’s digging down deep inside yourself and finding the fire in the belly to become unstoppable.
You will face unrelenting rejection, disappointments and dead ends in your pursuit for a new job. After spending hours, days and weeks completing dozens of lengthy applications and submitting hundreds of résumés, you won’t hear a peep from the companies. Interviews will be capricious—cancelled minutes or hours before it was scheduled to start. You’ll go on half a dozen interviews and then get ghosted and never know what really happened and why you didn’t hear back.
Having grit provides the inner strength, mental rigor and toughness to keep you going in the face of adversity. It will push you to jump over all of the hurdles in your way, run through brick walls and kick down doors to get to the opportunities you want and deserve.
Stay Flexible And Nimble
Prior to the pandemic, the job market was relatively hot and it was much easier to interview and find a great, new job. Now, it’s even tougher than it was in the aftermath of Sept. 11 and the financial crisis of 2008. It’s possible that the type of job you previously held doesn’t exist any longer, relevant appropriate jobs have relocated to less-expensive cities or outside of the country and companies want to hire applicants for a lower wage than you’re seeking.
As time goes on, you’ll need to reassess the situation. If you’re doing the same thing each and every day, it may be time to start considering other options—as opposed to continuing to knock your head against the wall. Think of pivoting into something a little different. Assess your core skills, background and experience and check into how you can apply them to a different job or career. You can then expand your search to include these other types of roles. Casting a larger net will yield more results.
This may be the time to reinvent yourself. It’s a little more challenging than a pivot. It will require you to take a few steps backwards to later advance. Consider what you really want to do next. Ask yourself what’s your passion and love—that can also pay the bills.
Find out what you need to learn or the credentials required to start anew, then re-create your career. It’s not easy to start all over again, especially if you’re of a certain age and previously earned a good living. However, in desperate times, you need to take desperate measures.
You may also have to consider relocating to other locations that offer more job opportunities or a lower cost of living. Try applying for jobs outside of your commuting distance and tell them that you’d like to work remotely. The worst they could do is say, “Sorry, we can’t do that.” You could simply reply, “Please keep me in mind as remote/work-from-anywhere is becoming the new standard.”
Become A Sales And Marketing Guru
Ages ago, back in 2019 and early 2020, you could have an adequate LinkedIn profile, contact a few friends and former colleagues, send out some résumés and have a good likelihood of getting interviews, which could lead to job offers within a reasonable time frame. Those good ol’ days are now from a bygone era. You now have to work 10 times harder to get a fraction of the results.
Since it was a good job market for many people, it’s natural that your interviewing skills atrophied a bit. You didn’t have to be hardcore to get a job, so you likely became somewhat complacent—expecting that the job opportunities would fall into your lap. That won’t fly now. You have to be energized and do everything in your power to get noticed.
This entails actively and effectively networking on social media sites, such as LinkedIn. Approach networking with thoughtful purposes with an endgame in mind. Reach out directly to hiring managers and the internal human resources professionals responsible for hiring.
Cold call or email recruiters who are active in your space. Request a video meeting and sell them on yourself. Ask them to share opportunities with you. Do this with a number of other recruiters so you have several people championing your cause. If—and when—your calls and emails aren’t answered, you can’t let it discourage you. Keep knocking on doors until one opens up for you.
It may feel awkward and uncomfortable, but you need to contact old acquaintances, former colleagues, college alumni and anyone and everyone that you can think of who could potentially put you in touch with the appropriate persons at a company that has the right job for you.
Salespeople develop a thick skin and accept “no” as part of the process. They view rejection as all part of the game and one step closer to a “yes.” Sales is all about the law of large numbers. The more people that you get in front of, the greater chance you have of someone purchasing your product. If you keep plugging away, not letting the rejections get to you, something will eventually give.
In this current job market, the key to successfully finding a new job is having grit, allowing yourself to be flexible and learning how to effectively sell yourself to recruiters, people who could offer introductions to opportunities and prospective employers.
Source:Forbes
