How to Find a Job During Pandemic

Since coronavirus has affected nearly every industry of the global economy, many experts agree – the whole world is headed to an economic decline. Unfortunately, we have many people today who weren’t prepared to deal with all this recession and lay-offs. What does pandemic mean to them today? After falling to a down pit of unemployment they are plunging into a vague and rather uncertain career market today. Some haven’t saved enough money in bank accounts. This definitely is not contributing to the feeling of confidence or protection during this messy time.

What steps can be taken for getting back on track with careers?

How to find a new job during recession? Well, the first thing that you can do for finding a new job is start updating a resume after you are done with a career skills reassessment. Second, try to stay positive and quit thinking there is no way of finding a new job during the COVID-19 pandemic. In case if you’re currently going through tough times being laid off by employers. Are you sitting in quarantine and freaking out not knowing what to expect next after losing a day job? Remain focused and try not to panic. Think strategically and start collecting information that helps you to find effective ways to get you back in the game.

Even though many businesses reacted to coronavirus risks with furloughs, still plenty of other businesses post career ads regularly with jobs available. So, just find a new job by starting to network actively. If your circle of friends is modest, find other ways to go about it.

In this blog post, we’ll make an overview of some strategic steps on how to get a job and useful approaches to follow to learn how to find work and succeed in getting a new job. No matter whether you want some tips or just browsing around online, this information is helpful.

Tip 1. Find a new job with active networking on social media and with online applications

Since we all have to cope with new regulations regarding social distancing, the best you can do in this situation is to start taking advantage of technology and social media. If you have an Upstream app, available on iPhone, go ahead and become a part of the “Coronavirus Helping and Hiring” group. This platform contains job posts of companies that are still offering jobs even during the pandemic. The best feature of this platform is that It will connect you to recruitment companies directly.

You’ll find recruiters from such big corporations like WP Engine, Greylock Partners, and Wealthfront. You’ll get access to job offers and work with liaisons between job seekers and companies that hire. Don’t have an iPhone? Not a problem – seek individuals you can get access on behalf of and apply. Upstream made an announcement that they’ve been working on building the same service for Androids as well. So, soon this service will be available for Android users.

By the way, if you want to dive deeper into the business capabilities of the Facebook platform, an online course “Facebook Ads For Beginners (Part 1): Prepping For Your Ad” will be a good one to take. Educate yourself on how to build and design Facebook ads. 

Learn how to create them from scratch and about the best strategies for reaping immediate results. This course is good for absolute beginners providing lots of instructions step-by-step, as well as actual examples. No specific requirements for taking this course. All you need is a computer, Internet, and a Facebook business page.

Tip 2. The best way to find a new job is to go with online tools you’ve already used

Are you stuck at home without having too many face-to-face interactions with other people? Social distancing doesn’t equal isolation. Don’t feel like you’ve been cut off from the rest of the world. Need more tips for finding a job? Go to web tools and resources that you’ve already used to connect with your business peers and entrepreneurs before the pandemic hit.

Facebook Live, GoToWebinar, Google Hangouts, WebEx, Vimeo Live are the handiest resources out there used for virtual engagement, web interactions, networking events, and online conferences. We also have digital-only and Instagram TV (IGTV) virtual communities that are nurturing network activities around these resources in nearly every location.

Most recruiters admit that one of the most widely used online platforms for hosting events has been Meetup.com. This platform has multi-language support for non-English speakers. And, of course, there is the StreamYard – live streaming tool which lets you stream directly from your home to  LinkedIn, YouTube, and many more other Internet virtual spaces.

Do you want to get more useful information about the most effective methods used for setting up a successful webinar? Take an online course “How To Use Webinars For Your Business”. You’ll get down to 8 effective techniques that will help you to create a high-quality webinar for free.

In case you like YouTube a lot and want to collect more tips and hints on how to establish online visibility with high-quality videos, take a useful online course “Video Marketing Hacking: How to Fire Up Your Online Presence”.

Market yourself or your business with video marketing strategies. Learn what mistakes to avoid and what methods to use for immediate results. Also, you’ll learn how YouTube videos generate massive traffic sources for your website, which will skyrocket your business and bring it to a whole new level.

Tip 3. Find a job now by crafting your resume and making it AI-friendly

If you’ve been working hard on updating your resume and tailoring it to be sent out to individual recruiters, try a different approach. No secret, today lots resumes are read by robots, so make your resume picked up by a parser easily. The whole trick here is you need to set it up as straightforward as possible with a simple language. Forget about intricate formats or flowery terms used in a description. In other words, don’t confuse a robot while passing your resume over to recruitment platforms. 

Since over 70% of companies use some sort of resume parser to sort information out, creating summaries, and ranking candidates, you need to make sure that your resume will be understood by the parser with no problem.

Some tips for you how to go about it:

• Keep a job title simple. Stick to the exact description of the title that the employer would use. For example, don’t describe your skills as “I’m a coding ninja”, just specify that you’re a web development engineer.
• Keep a standard format for the document.  Since all robots like well-organized and structured data, using too much creativity for designing a resume will not help. For example, using a two-column approach while presenting information about yourself and your skills won’t be helpful and understood by parser. So, keep the description in a more traditional manner – linear or top-to-bottom standard format.
• It’s okay to stick to a straightforward language which is rather simple. Maybe you are a fan of prose or sophisticated terms in sentences. However, this won’t do any good if a resume will be overloaded with too many confusing descriptions. Again, don’t confuse a robot. Speak to it in simple language avoiding long sentences. Specialize your application and make it robot-friendly.

Are you wondering how to find a good paying job by aiming for a specific employer? Note it at the top of a resume. Write a few sentences stating this. Are you after a very creative job? Go ahead and submit two different versions of a resume to see which one will do the job and get a job. Remember, there is an option of submitting a cover letter where you can show off writing capabilities or your unique persona to employers.

Go to the resume-building website Zety to view samples and nice templates of professionally done resumes. This website has a vast ocean of good info on building your resume from scratch and making it stand out.

Looking for more opportunities for boosting knowledge in marketing terms and phrases to use them later in a resume?  Take an online course “Business English | Marketing Phrases”. This course will teach you the most essential phrases used in marketing breaking them down to more simple meanings. 

This course is useful for job seeking individuals and professional business people who want to learn official definitions of marketing terms fast and without hitting too many books. If you’re a non-English speaker you’ll be thrilled with not only learning a lot of useful information but also with practicing correct pronunciation of everything you learn.

Tip 4. Best way to find a job online is to develop a network with LinkedIn

According to recent statistical data collected by Jobvite from 200 recruiters, over 60% of companies do their talent hunting on social media sites today.

What are the most needed jobs right now?

Go ahead and find out with LinkedIn. This is one of the most popular channels actively used today by both recruiters and job seekers. LinkedIn has over 660 mils of users all over the world and provides plenty of information about places that pay well and best industries to work in. 

It’s easier now for candidates to get on the radar of recruiters if they manage their LinkedIn profile wisely. Why advertise career skills with the LinkedIn platform? Because you can impress hiring companies with samples of your work and show off an already well-established brand.

LinkedIn is a gateway to career opportunities and has been actively utilized by such monster corporations like PayPal, Indeed, Microsoft, Ford for identifying, mapping, and reaching out to desired candidates. As it’s been already reported in the previous year, every eight seconds somebody gets hired through LinkedIn. However, today having an actively maintained account is not enough, you need to use a strategy for staying on the radar.

Some tips on what you can do to integrate the key elements of creating a strong headline into your LinkedIn account. Make it more visible to recruiters:

• Introduce yourself with LinkedIn headlines. Remember, LinkedIn headlines are commonly used as a business card, as well as an elevator pitch of a digital profile. A headline is usually placed right under your name and gives a good chance to advertise yourself. Sometimes a well written and strong headline can make a first impression. It can be a decision-maker for the recruiter who decides whether he wants to select your resume or not.
• Stick to a concise and succinct language while emphasizing your skills. Recruiters state – those headlines that deliver a clear message about the most important achievements within seconds are appreciated the most. So, if you’d make smart use of the word limit by highlighting what experience you can bring to this particular company, you’ll be a winner. Create it like a slogan and you can also separate key phrases with a pipe key to make it easier to read and skim.
• Try not to be too wordy. Try not to use full sentences when creating your headline. Recruiters say that in most cases headlines with full sentences are harder to read. Another thing is they suggest staying away from “bragging” by using such words as “stunningly attractive” or “influencer”.

Ask a professional for feedback and acquire a second opinion. Have somebody else take a look at your headline and give you honest feedback. You need to be sure that you did a good job of delivering a message.

First, ask whether your headline looks professional or needs more work with that.

Second, find out what message it sends exactly.

Third, make sure that your headline stays consistent with the rest of the info you provisioned in a LinkedIn account.

Fourth, try to find out whether your headline is missing out on anything. Or whether there is anything that needs to be added to it.

Another good thing to remember is to create a headline key-word friendly. Keep it optimized and consistent with the rest of the profile.

Think about what most commonly used phrases recruiters apply while browsing for applicants in one industry or another. Make sure the headline in your resume contains enough essential keywords. This will make it more searchable to recruiters.

Do you want to learn more about the job interview process, what kind of buzz words recruiters use? Do you want to show up for an interview all self-confident and well prepared? Take an online course “The Complete English for Job Interview course | 2019 Edition”.

After going through the course, you won’t feel terrified of job interviews anymore. Take this course and learn what questions you’ll be asked by recruiters and what are the best answers to provide to get your dream job.

Bottom line

No matter what your current situation is in terms of a job search, or if you still can’t find a job – stay positive and don’t hesitate to use the extra time for learning new skills! Go to Grinfer to check it out for more great online courses and boost your career with new skills.

Stay tuned for more updates and information on the Grinfer’s blog.