The Job Market Has Shifted, Should You? – Part 3

As we enter into another month of living and working in the world of Covid-19, today we’re bringing you concrete tools and data around how you should consider moving forward, career-wise, as the global economy is shifting, from Katy Piotrowski, M.Ed., LPC, Licensed Professional Career Counselor (LPC) and Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW).

In case you missed our earlier blog posts on this topic, click here for Part 1, and here for Part 2.

Today we’re rounding up our series with practical and conservative ways for you to explore a career change, how to get past the hurdle of the fear factor, and avoiding reacting to something that ultimately won’t work for you.

If at any time you would like to explore a more in-depth career search with our help, we offer various services to guide clients through career exploration and experiments. At the end of this post we’ll list our contact information.

Techniques and strategies you can execute on your own are many. Let’s start with wise moves you can make now in terms of exploration, so you have a better idea of what your plan B or C could be.

Your niche is made up of two parts. The role, and the industry. For example, customer service (role) in food distribution (industry.) Or accountant (role) with an internet service provider (industry.) If you can break it down that way and think What else do I want to look at? What else could I consider if I decide to make a move or need to make a move? Consider what role makes sense for you.

For example, I have a client who has been impacted by the market shifts. He was doing customer education on site. He was like a traveling road show, where he would educate on products at different location around the country. The product he was representing is taking a nose dive right now, one that falls into the disposable income category. So his job was recently cut. But his work is as an educator, and that skill can be applied to different things. He can take his role and consider an industry that is more in demand.

When you initially come up with some ideas to think about I want to encourage you not to get too hung up on those first ideas. I know from experience that 90% of clients who are exploring career changes throw out their first ideas once they learn more about them. So just come up with something to get started and dive in on what I’m about to describe for you.

One of the first safe, effective career exploration strategies is to monitor the job ads. On average, only about 20% of positions get filled through a job ad. Surprising? Here’s another interesting statistic: 90% of job seekers apply only to postings. So this is why there is so much competition. When you apply to something that looks good online 100’s of other people apply with you.

What we’re talking about here is monitoring. You may not necessarily take a leap, but you can just get an idea of what’s showing up out there and what the demand is. Monitor LinkedIn Jobs – a lot of positions get posted there. Indeed.com, and remote work sites like FlexJobs, are good ones to monitor.

Looking at a search at the top of customer service, internet service provider, I pulled up 139 results. A remote work position like this has the upside of being able to be executed in a lot of places. So, as you monitor and search you don’t necessarily need to be putting in a geography if you’re open to remote work. Just take a peek at what is getting advertised, what they’re calling it, and what are the job responsibilities. This is one effective technique for just keeping tabs on what’s going on in the market around certain specialties.

The next strategy I want to talk about is career exploration. This is interviewing specialists, which I mentioned in Part 2 of this series. Through our service we’ve been connecting our clients to individuals who work in different specialties so they can conduct interviews. It’s one thing to look at a job description and think “Oh, that would be so cool” but when you dig in you discover some sort of deal killer about the work. Not in all cases, of course, but in many; you have probably run into this yourself. So this is why it’s helpful to have firsthand conversations with people who are already succeeding in areas you’re thinking about.

We call these career research interviews and they are purely for research, not for job search. It’s very important that you keep that separate in your mind. If you try to mix the two it will feel insincere to the person being interviewed. It’s also good for you to keep them separate because you don’t know yet what you want to get into. View this purely as an information gathering opportunity.

Next is career experiments. These are short term, low risk activities that expose you to areas you may be thinking about. A way for you to get your hands dirty, so to speak, before you commit to making a move into something. So if we go back to my client who is thinking about the possibility of shifting into green energy, he’s been thinking about sales of solar energy specifically. He could dive in and learn more about the industry, do some self-study of what are sales processes that work well in that industry. He could consider doing a shadow, though of course in-person is up in the air right now. He could take courses, perhaps on new sales techniques. These are all career experiments. Short term, low risk activities that expose you to an area you’re thinking about.

My most recommended strategy for investigating safe and effective career changes are the career research interviews. You can find specialists through LinkedIn. This is how we find them for our clients. We act as the intermediary, which is often more comfortable for people. We get the specialist’s permission to be interviewed and then provide the connection.

You can also find people on your own, through LinkedIn, who are doing the kind of work you’re thinking about. Ask them if you can interview them over the phone for 15 minutes; that’s typically all the time you’ll need. One of the first questions you’ll want to ask them is “How did you get started in your line of work?” This is a great first question because often people will reply “Oh, my story is so unique!”

Everyone’s story is unique, but it’s fun for people to talk about their story. And it’s a good way to build some bonding and rapport. The next question you can ask is “What are the pros and cons?” This is super important to know, as we were talking about earlier; something can look much more attractive on the outside than the actual inside perspective. A third good question to ask is “Who else can you suggest I interview?” I recommend getting at least three perspectives.

These are all things you can do on your own with a little bit of legwork and research. Just keep in mind, if you’re looking to make a change you need to connect the dots for a prospective employer. Don’t expect them to look at your former background and say “This person has potential.” No, you need to draw it out for them.

As I mentioned earlier we do offer a service to guide clients through career exploration and experiments. If you’d like to set up a consultation send me an email, katy@careersolutionsgroup.net, or call 970-224-4042. I’ll send you the link to my calendar and we can just have a conversation over the phone about you and what you’re looking to accomplish.

I’ll wrap up here with a favorite quote: “The secret to change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”