Читать книгу How to Get a Job In a Recession: A Comprehensive Guide to Job Hunting In the 21st Century - Denise M.D. Taylor - Страница 22

To some this may seem like a silly question. You bought this book because you want to get a job, but what job exactly? In a recession, not all jobs are attainable. Even worse, many are eliminated. Marie was expecting to get promoted to Land Director, but instead was made redundant when the building company she worked for lost 90% of its value. Kim was made redundant as fewer people were buying houses and she was no longer needed as a legal executive. Roger was made redundant as a sales manager for a car dealership when car sales dropped. They all loved their jobs and wouldn’t have sought a change in position, but their redundancy gave them time to reflect on what they actually wanted to do. Roger was a natural sales person with an excellent track record and found a job quickly, but Marie and Kim took time to consider alternatives and take a fresh look at the job market.

Marie was able to refocus and adjust her skill set and is now working as a project manager in sustainable development. It doesn’t pay as much as she earned before but she has a better quality of life.

Kim looked for work that would make good use of her high level of organisational skills and her legal background. She was fortunate to get two job offers and gained employment making great use of her particular skills and background. Her new job allows her to meet staff from law firms, enabling her to build contacts in case she wants to make a change when the economic climate improves.

Roger used the proactive approach and took another sales position, earning even more than before. Kim found her job in the newspaper and Marie was approached after uploading her CV onto a jobs site.

In a recession, the job you are qualified to do may not be available, so you may not be able to stay on the same career path – no matter how good you are. So you need to think about what else you can and want to do, to refocus skills to suit something else. If you have (or had) a job you hated, this might be the best time to consider doing something different.

Now it’s even more important to be clear on what you want to do. Knowing yourself, knowing more about the job you seek, and being clear about how you match up will dramatically increase your chance of success. If not you will be one of the many who browse through job sites in the hope that something appeals. You must know what you are looking for; it makes it much easier when you meet with people, as you are clear on what you want to do and can clearly state what you seek. This applies when meeting people both in person and on LinkedIn etc.

Being clear about who you are and what you want to do means that all your marketing material – CV, Cover letter, LinkedIn profile – send out the same message. You need to be consistent; everything must have a similar message to increase your chance of getting what you want.

Making a choice – what do I want to do?

You have a choice: to look for something similar to what you have previously done or to do something new, but what?

You will be revising your CV so prepare by doing some analysis.