IN A WORLDWIDE RECESSION HERE ARE 5 WAYS TO GET HIRED NOW

IN A WORLDWIDE RECESSION, HERE ARE 5 WAYS TO GET HIRED NOW

IN A WORLDWIDE RECESSION, HERE ARE 5 WAYS TO GET HIRED NOW

I knew it wouldn’t be simple after I finished college all those years ago. The economy was in the midst of a downturn, and opportunities for employment were slim to none. The world as we know it now, post-Corona virus, appears to be a case of…

Everything old is new again.

Finding and keeping a job is especially challenging for young people during economic downturns. In the US during what Australians call the Global Financial Crisis, although the unemployment rate for all workers peaked at 10%, the percentage for workers between 16 and 24 years old climbed to 19.2%.

Besides the apparent short-term consequences, missing out on these entry-level positions makes it extremely difficult to recover.

There’s no quick recovery

According to research conducted in the United States, college grads who experienced the economic downturn in their first year out of school had significantly lower earnings. For the next seven years, this trend persisted as many college grads were forced to accept lower-paying positions. This set a low floor for future income rises.

How can you protect yourself against this worldwide catastrophe? To summarise Australia’s reaction to the Great Financial Crisis…

Start strong, strike early, and become technical.

Tip #1: you need more than just advanced degrees in technology.

Right now, if I were in the market for a new job, I’d be curious about the qualifications an applicant with two or more years of work experience would have. Then I would work hard to ensure that I achieved them.

When I finished my Master’s degree in Accounting, I was well into my thirties, making me an outlier among my peers. After years of teaching French, I made the decision to transition into a new industry and technological field, and I was prepared to jump right in. In order to get a good grasp of accounting theory and practise, I worked through every issue in the Accounting textbook. The teacher thought I was completely nuts.

After a few years in the workforce, I realised that I understood a lot more than my colleagues who had crammed for tests but had forgotten everything they had studied.

Sites like coursera.org and others offer free online courses with more sophisticated material, such as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and EdX programmes (which feature free courses from MIT and Harvard).

You should also research tools that can help you perform better on aptitude tests used in the hiring process. One of the Chartered Accountants I worked with couldn’t pass the numerical reasoning test. He felt terrible shame. You shouldn’t let that happen to you. You may locate a wealth of resources to help you hone your abilities by doing a simple Google search.

Tip #2: Keep abreast of developments in recruitment technology.

You have probably come across the topic of Applicant Tracking Software as part of your exploration of best practises for resumes (ATS). Obviously, this is a major problem. Due to the large number of people seeking employment, many companies will use applicant tracking systems (ATS) as part of their initial screening process.

Simply put, applicant tracking systems attempt to keep tabs on potential employees.

An applicant tracking system (ATS) is a piece of software that can sift through a large pool of applicants to find the best possible candidate for a certain job. Resumes are given a score out of 100 and only those with high enough scores are sent to a human for review. This score is based on the results of keyword searches as well as the candidate’s fulfilment of qualifications and other pre-determined criteria. Some applicant tracking systems can also access your social media sites to compile a more complete image of you for potential employers.

While ATSs were originally utilised by huge enterprises processing thousands of applications every year, they are now being adopted by companies of all sizes. There are more than 200 available, and it’s estimated that 80% of Australian businesses use one. This means you should definitely include them in your strategy.

What to do?

Learn if an applicant tracking system (ATS) will be used by the company for each position you are applying for. If so, you should send your “ATS” resume to the company. Numerous weblogs offer in-depth guides on improving your resume. Some examples of things you’ll want to check out are listed below.

  1. Font: It’s not all read-by-machine ATS. file types (such as docx, pdf, rtf, and jpg), and a large number of typefaces
  2. Acronyms:acronyms can be confusing for the ATS
  3. Logos: The Acronym Transliteration System (ATS) sometimes has trouble keeping up.
  4. Headers, Footers, TextBoxes and Tables:The field the ATS is trying to populate will be blank if it cannot extract the necessary information from them.
  5. Gaps in your career chronology: If your resume doesn’t include every single period of employment, it could get dinged by some applicant tracking systems.
  6. Contact information:If your application isn’t screened because it lacks a postcode, some ATS may not even look at it.
  7. Brevity: If your resume doesn’t include every single period of employment, it could get dinged by some applicant tracking systems.
  8. Keywords:State-of-the-art ATS systems rely on contextualization, so using keywords in a vacuum won’t help you.

Why the need for two résumés?

Perhaps you should just send out your “ATS” resume to every company you apply to. I would advise against doing so. Many people won’t bother reading a document if it’s too unappealing to look at, and that’s likely the case with the ATS version. Your ATS resume may need to be rather lengthy to account for the factors mentioned in point 7 above. Repetition and excessive length could turn off an actual person reading your resume.

Create two versions of your resume—one for a human reader and one for the feared Applicant Tracking System—that both convince the reader that you’re the best candidate for the job.

Tip #3: Hone your communication skills

Companies can now demand candidates with a whole toolkit, including both hard and soft talents. Your soft skills will likely have progressed to their current state over time, but you may always improve your communication abilities. In other words, no hiring manager will ever tell you, “We’re not going to hire you because you write too well,” but they might tell you the contrary, making this an area of emphasis.

Start improving your literacy and ensure that it is suitable for a sophisticated workplace. Here are three key areas to work on:

  1. The tenor of a piece of writing.I had an employee whose emails constantly began with “Hey Catherine,” which was always awkward. When corresponding with a coworker via email, do you know how to strike the right tone?
  2. Perhaps you should just send out your “ATS” resume to every company you apply to. I would advise against doing so. Many people won’t bother reading a document if it’s too unappealing to look at, and that’s likely the case with the ATS version. Your ATS resume may need to be rather lengthy to account for the factors mentioned in point 7 above. Repetition and excessive length could turn off an actual person reading your resume.Create two versions of your resume—one for a human reader and one for the feared Applicant Tracking System—that both convince the reader that you’re the best candidate for the job.
  3. High-level vocabulary. With its extensive vocabulary of more than a million words, English facilitates exceptional precision of expression. It’s important to pick your words carefully, but it’s next to impossible if your vocabulary is limited. The ability to employ complex language increases your chances of being persuasive in the business, so learning new words is a win-win.

Tip #4: Form a Workforce Readiness Team

A study group analogue, if you will. Each member of the team succeeds because they draw on the resources of the whole. The goal is to put into action successful methods of job hunting so that you can all succeed in securing satisfying employment. Join forces with other students who are going after different industries or who are in a different technical discipline than you are to prevent unhealthy competition.

Create an actionable job search strategy. In the beginning, meet every week, and then reduce the frequency to once a month or so once you’ve found steady employment. Give special attention to the following:

  1. Résumés
  2. LinkedIn profiles
  3. Cover Letters
  4. Job Search Strategies: networking & cold calling
  5. Interviews: phone, video, selfies, face to face

Tip #5: Use the resources at your disposal

Make sure that you are working at a Best Practice level. A teenage client of mine I spoke with the other day had tried five times to get into the paramedics. He was candid about his ignorance of interview skills in his early years and expressed deep sorrow for not being more prepared.

With so much top-notch resources readily available online today, there is no longer any justification for failing to meet your responsibilities.

Here are some basic rules to follow while writing resumes. To sum up, a resume must:

  • Headings and spacing should be aesthetically pleasing and logically constructed.
  • Incorporate well-written, persuasive proof of your qualifications.
  • Observe any cultural norms about resume length (a hint: Australian resumes are typically lengthier than American ones).

The same level of knowledge is required for each of the numbered items in your Job Search, as indicated above. Split the work up amongst your Job Ready Group members and get going on it.

What Employers Want

There are so many elements to consider when applying for a job. Yet, in essence, an employer will assess three elements:

…CAN you do the job

…WILL you do the job, and

…WILL you fit in.

Graduating during a recession does not always have the same negative consequences for students in the past. Those who graduated from highly selective schools or who majored in professions known to have high starting wages were more likely to regain lost income by switching occupations and employers after the economy recovered. And the disparities widened after the economic downturns.

There’s no point in changing majors now, but you can still become a highly capable graduate. If you master the five pillars of this blog, you will be well on your way to success.

Go Class of 2020!

2 comments

  1. Hi! I’m at work surfing around your blog from my new iphone 3gs! Just wanted to say I love reading through your blog and look forward to all your posts! Carry on the outstanding work!

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