Knowing how to land a job in a recession is likely to be a critical skill over the next couple of years. The ING Future Focus Report found that over 3 million workers here in Australia are looking to change jobs as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic; this includes 1.38 million Millennials and 1.31 million Generation Xers. However, while many workers wanted to change jobs, 32% expected opportunities to be very hard to come by, and one in four (23%) feel anxious or fearful about the prospects of finding work.
If you still have a job, you might be thinking of trying to ride out the recession in your current role. This might seem like the safest course of action given the current climate, even my friends in the travel industry seem to be of this opinion. I actually think this could be a far riskier strategy.
You might also be of the opinion that no one is hiring anyway. In the US alone, 22 million have lost their jobs as the coronavirus pandemic continues, with unemployment hovering at 18%, and this is only expected to rise. Therefore, you might be wondering how on earth you are going to find or change jobs in this climate, I know that I was.
Businesses have implemented employment freezes and even if they haven’t the recruitment process might take a lot longer. There might be extra steps and commitments or they might even low-ball you with a salary.
Why Now Is Exactly The Best Time To Take Risks
The perception of security can rapidly be eroded and this is precisely why you should start looking for a new job, even if you have one. If you build a strong reputation or worked your way up the company with job promotions, you might feel like your current job is safer than moving to a new company,
However, redundancies are made based on the balance sheet and not how hard you have worked. By contrast, any business hiring now is likely to be performing above the market. Therefore if you can land a job with them, you may actually have better job security than a company you have worked at for 5-10 years.
Not all industries have been affected the same and some may even be profiting off changes in consumer habits. For example; technology companies, supermarkets and consequently businesses that service these industries.
I have just landed a great job in Melbourne, earning more than double what I used to earn in the UK. It’s also probably the most exciting job I’ve had too, as i’ll be at the technological forefront of predictive analytics and consumer insights. Therefore, I feel I’m in a unique position of sharing what does or doesn’t work in terms of landing a job during a recession.
5 Things To Help You Land A Job In A Recession
You may remember that I quit my job in the UK at the start of 2020 to travel and live in Australia. Just as we arrived in March just as the Covid-19 lockdown took effect. With the fear of an impending recession, there were a number of stoic actions I took to manage the stress of the uncertainty.
These put me in a great place to apply for jobs and attend interviews. However, there are al 5 practical insights I can draw that helped me land a great job during employment freezes and the start of a recession.
1. It’s A Numbers Game When Landing A Job In A Recession
You might read articles telling you that you need to get creative, send in video CVs or create a fancy artistically designed 1 page CV and that you need to cater each CV and covering letter to each employer.
However, I completely ignored all of this advice and committed to a course of bulk applying to jobs, with the same CV and 4 template cover letters covering different areas of my target market. In my experience, this is the best approach during tough times, from graduating and getting my first job in 2013, to landing a job in 2020.
You need to throw everything you can at the job market and eventually, something will stick. Even applying to random stuff can get you an in with a recruiter like Robert Half, and they can dig out contract (e.g. 3-month roles) jobs that might not necessarily appear on job boards. I got 2 interviews via them but these ultimately didn’t work out.
2. Focus On Your Niche & Don’t Give Up
In a situation like this, you might panic, and try to diversify and break into new markets. This is absolutely fine if this doesn’t take up too much of your time. However, remember that you already have the best skills to succeed in your own niche.
You may also be tempted to apply for lower paid or perceived lower-skill jobs, but you may also fail here because this is where the masses are applying for jobs. You will potentially be overqualified and the employer will see straight away that as soon as the market picks up you’ll be gone.
Instead, niche down on the jobs that might be hard to fill such as ones requiring the most in-demand skills or the highest-paying industries or roles. You have to find the point of least resistance in the job market and focus on this.
It can be easy to think the markets gone to sh*t and you need to downgrade and lower your expectations, but this is the one trap to avoid. This is the time to be confident and go big. Maybe even look for higher paying roles than you’ve previously had.
3. Learn How To Skim Read The Job Market
In order to land a job in a recession, you need to master the skill of speed reading job boards. This is so that you can maximise your time and mass market your CV appropriately. Therefore you need to rapidly identify every relevant job opportunity. This all comes down to finding a method of getting through pages and pages of job adverts very quickly.
Step 1: Identify The Best Job Boards
Open up something like SEEK (AU), INDEED (AU/GB) or Reed . Identify some keywords that suit your job market, so for me this is:
- Analyst
- Data Analyst
- Financial Analyst
- Insights
- Pricing Analyst
- Revenue Analyst
- Master Data
Step 2: Focus Only On What Is Relevant
You can then proceed to open up all relevant jobs but ignore 90% of this job advert apart from the person specification. If you can meet at least 20% of the criteria then apply. Often employers may put out over-complicated, jargony or even dull-sounding descriptions of perfectly good jobs.
I’ll admit when I was initially contacted about my current role I barely remembered applying for it. However, it turned out to be a really exciting opportunity. By not focusing heavily on the job description, you can stop over-thinking or dismissing many jobs because you think that you are not qualified.
You can take me as a prime example of this. I applied for a permanent role even though I could only work 6 months max for an employer here in Australia, this has led to a permanent role and sponsorship. Highlighting that if you meet the specification then they will go through the barrier to employ you.
Step 3: Apply In The Most Efficient Way
Only use quick apply tools, don’t bother wasting time setting up user logins on an employers site, and spending time refilling out your cv on their webpage. Upload your CV to the sites mentioned above and mass apply.
This is also a great way to be able to revisit the job you applied for if you do get a call. At which point you can read through the job role, and simplify each sentence around the requirement to a one word skill or experience and ask if you fit this requirement.
4. Perfect Your CV To Get Noticed
You need a succinct two page CV which captures a high number of keywords including experiences, skills and job roles that automated vetting systems or HR can compare to the required job specification. In order to do this you need to include:
A bio at the top of the page to make you stand out. This should include how much experience you have, in which industries. What level of education. What are the two or three top skills that you have?
A list of your skills: This should primarily focus on technical skills e.g. Microsoft excel. You should probably have around 5 bullet points here.
Your last 3 jobs: This is probably a little difficult for people with years of experience and multiple jobs. You can also include a link to your LinkedIn which contains your other jobs.
Education: Including your degree, which years and where. Anything at a lower level can just be described as 10 A to C grade GSCEs including Maths, English and Science. The employer can be left to draw conclusions around what the other topics and grades are. If you have a strong CV they’ll probably assume they’re As and Bs. This is a far cry from the reality of my GCSE grades, so this works in my advantage.
Extra things worth mentioning: such as awards, attended courses, key achievements and experiences that you are proud of. Your contribution to your businesses or teams accomplishments can also be included.
Include everything, no matter how seemingly insignificant. This includes online courses you’ve taken at work, and facts and figures around your current role/employers performance. Perhaps there’s something you’ve done whilst at Uni that might even help you stand out.
Click here to get the most effective CV template I’ve ever used. This includes many of the key words and sentences I use through my CV to convey important information and get noticed.
5. Learn Everything About The Employer in 30 minutes
If you get a call or an interview then this step is of critical importance. You need to effectively digest everything about the potential employer for a short period of time.
- Read their annual report and financial statement.
- Go through their website (e.g. about us page).
- Understand the functionality and purpose of their product.
- Find any news articles about them.
- Identify and learn what makes them unique in their niche vs the competition.
Identify the following:
- What do you most admire or find exciting about the company?
- Their key challenges over the short, mid and long-term. Consider solutions.
- What are they trying to accomplish?
- Understand the needs of their client or customer?
- If you have a job spec – tailor your skills/experience to each requirement
- Understand what the key aspects of the role are (e.g. stakeholder management)
In advance of any interviews, prepare framework responses for any competency or behavioural questions you may be asked. Write these out in a word document for easy access.
Build A Framework To Stand Out
You don’t have to know how to answer every question, but being able to easily access your memory of experiences is useful. Therefore it’s useful to build a frame-work around the key types of questions such as:
- Adaptability
- Commercial awareness
- Communication
- Conflict resolution
- Decisiveness
- Independence
- Flexibility
- Leadership
- Problem-solving
- Organisation
- Resilience
- Teamwork.
This will make you seem like you are answering in an unscripted way, which you will be, but you are already prepared with a memory or example of you can present. I have found the below websites useful for doing this recently.
- Robert Half – Behavioural Interview Questions
- Prospects – Competency Interview Tips
- Total Jobs – Competency Based Interviews
- Michael Page – How To Answer Competency Based Interview Questions
Just Taking Action Will Make You Stand Out
It’s important to remember that if you apply for a job now, you may actually stand out from the crowd. The 99% of the population may be too scared to change jobs or think that nobody is employing so why bother applying.
Therefore you may be in the unique position of being the 1% that does apply, and this in itself shows that you have some very employable traits:
- Respond well to pressure
- Adaptable to change
- Perceptive and understand the business’s industry.
- Knowledgable enough about the company to bother applying.
This can all result in you being rewarded for taking the effort to apply for jobs and interview for positions. Therefore, I believe you should start evaluating the job market and in-demand skills, perfect your CV and niche down in these areas.
Get A Strategic Advantage To Land A Great Job In A Recession
Remember that all you need to get started here, is to download my CV template and you can get started with finding your new job within the hour. This is probably the most simple and effective template I’ve used. This has got me through the door with some leading organisations (even on the other side of the world).
Since I started using it my call-back success rate has dramatically increased. So I want to share it with you to ensure that when you apply for a role you have the best chance of getting noticed. In this climate, you can’t afford to not make every application count.
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