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No matter how much you prepare for your job search, a fair amount of the process will be out of your control and highly dependent on timing. The timeframe in which you seek a new job can dictate everything from the quantity and type of opportunities you find to the amount of negotiation power you ultimately have.
This is certainly the case as job seekers grapple with the economic disruptions and social distancing guidelines resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. It’s hard enough to know how to adjust to this new normal in your home life, and needing to secure your livelihood adds an additional layer of pressure.
Some job seekers may be able to stay in their current job and wait for the market conditions to improve. But if you have to launch or continue a job search this month, here’s what you need to know to be prepared and best use your time during this tumultuous period.
1. It is indeed possible to find a new job right now
Under normal circumstances, the month of April would provide job seekers with several advantages. It is neither crowded and competitive like January nor filled with the distractions that come in the second half of the year, such as summer vacations or holidays.
Unfortunately, this year will be different. According to the US Labor Department over 700,000 jobs left the economy in March. This indicates a dramatic swing from the historically low unemployment levels of just a few months ago. The job outlook hasn’t shifted this rapidly since 1975, which may make you question if finding a new job right now is even possible.
It’s true that many companies, especially those in the areas that were hit the hardest such as retail, food service and travel industries, are implementing hiring freezes and furloughing employees. However, companies in other industries are continuing to hire for some routine needs and even accelerating the demand for critical jobs on the frontline of healthcare, maintaining medical and consumer supply chains, implementing remote services or delivering essential home and food products.
While this is encouraging, April’s job market will still be difficult to navigate. You’ll likely receive slower responses and will need to prepare for the inevitable disappointment when an opening you wanted is put on hold. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t be successful in finding a new position. You only need one job and companies are still hiring for the roles they most need.
Your challenge will be in setting appropriate expectations without exhausting all your motivation. Individuals who can quickly embrace virtual job-searching will have an edge in the process, but daily applying, virtual networking and remote interviews require consistent energy and focus. It will be difficult to maintain your stamina if you become convinced that success is impossible.
It’s certainly understandable to have hard days where you lose hope that there will be opportunities, but don’t get stuck in that place because it will turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. It may take more time than you initially hoped for to find a new role, but make sure that you believe that finding a new job is still possible because it is.
2. Network to figure out which jobs are real
The hardest thing to measure right now is how many jobs are actually available because many hiring managers are too distracted to focus on current openings or haven’t yet decided what they want to do with jobs that they opened before the full brunt of the crisis hit.
You could spend weeks applying to things online only to hear nothing back or to learn that most of those jobs aren’t being filled right now. This isn’t a problem if you have the time to focus on online applications and network aggressively. But if you can only fit in one of those activities, focus on virtual networking.
Setting up calls with a broad set of personal and professional colleagues will improve your chances of finding jobs that are truly available and employers who are ready to hire now.
These conversations will also help position you with the companies that may not be motivated to hire at the moment, but could be ready to get going again soon.
You’ve probably heard both about companies that are experiencing large financial losses from the pandemic and have been forced into layoffs and hiring freezes, and about businesses with increased customer demand because of social distancing, like Amazon, who are ramping up for aggressive hiring.
But there are a lot of companies that sit in between these two dynamics, companies that are following several financial indicators and seeing mixed results. They aren’t hurting too badly just yet, but they aren’t confident about what lies ahead. These companies are hoping to wait it out a little longer before deciding if they should push forward with hiring to get the edge on competitors or hold at their current number of employees while they brace for a sustained downturn.
By focusing on your networking efforts, you will be better positioned to start interviewing once some of these companies shift from a cautious to a more opportunistic approach and re-engage in hiring. Plant the seeds now and next month may be a lot more fruitful.
3. This will not feel like any of your previous job searches
If you are feeling trepidation about making a decision on a job without physical connection, you aren’t alone. Droves of new candidates are entering the job market at a time when social distancing has led to a hiring process that is conducted completely online.
Video interviewing has been around for a long time but it is most often used for the first round of screening or to fit someone into your interview schedule to avoid delaying the hiring process.
Though not true for everyone, conducting a job search from beginning to end without meeting anyone physically is probably uncharted territory for you. Most people visit their future work location before taking a new job and meet at least their new boss in person, if not their team and new colleagues.
Video is a great alternative way to connect, but it is not the same as a physical meeting. You will miss some of the emotional cues that may have been red flags or positive signs that would have helped you know that you’d be happy in the culture.
Virtual job searches are an even larger leap of faith than a normal search. Should you get an offer this month, be ready to experience a feeling that the evaluation process is somehow incomplete. Start preparing yourself for it now.
If you need to start working again as soon as possible, you may choose to accept an offer regardless of your ideal wants or desire to meet in person. But be aware that depending on what you do, your level of seniority and your own need for due diligence, you may run into a final hurdle at the end of the interview process; you may have to wait for a time to meet in person before moving to offer, and that meeting probably won’t take place this month.
Either way, keep in mind that like most things in life right now, this job search will be different than any of your previous searches and that may inhibit your ability to move forward in a way that you are familiar with or have previously done.
Be gentle with yourself and know that small steps matter even if you can’t be as productive as you’d like. Try to remain positive and simply get as far as you can with your job search this month (whatever that is) and you may be well on your way to a new opportunity sooner than you expect.
Kourtney Whitehead is a career expert and author of Working Whole. You can learn more about her work at Simply Service.
