Who would have guessed the coronavirus would puff up into a full-blown pandemic of such frightening magnitude. Its lethality did, indeed, bring down many lives but the will to survive also gave rise to paradigm shifts in individuals, communities as well as organizations across the globe. With the aftermath of its impact continuing to haunt our lives, the future will never be “business as usual” or “back to normal”. The coronavirus is here to stay or perhaps, cohabit with humankind. Fortunately, so are the new paradigms it gave rise to.
Let’s take a quick look at some of the unique ways the pandemic altered the way job-seekers – both recent graduates as well as experienced professionals – sought jobs in a fast-evolving, pandemic-led job scenario.
Virtual Networking
Networking for exclusive job opportunities existed even before Covid-19. Thanks to the pandemic’s social distancing protocols, there rose an interesting notion of virtual networking where job-seekers could reach out to anyone on the planet and schedule a 15-minute video chat without worrying about geographical boundaries. Job-seekers were quick to realize it is far more successful to land a lucrative job interview by connecting and talking to people on a virtual platform instead of simply filling out routine job applications like everyone else.
The basic strategy was to prepare a mental list of companies you wished to work for and then connect with them through their social media accounts. Even before attending interviews, job-seekers were becoming part of the social network of top-notch companies, befriending executives who worked there and proactively engaging in meaningful conversations that made decision-makers sit up and take notice. At the same time, more and more recruiters were also warming up to the idea of hiring referred connections from trusted networks. This clearly gave the green signal to job-seekers across the globe to pro-actively reach out to hiring managers and recruiters through professional networking sites, such as LinkedIn and interestingly, also through Slack.
With over 133 million users in the U.S. alone, LinkedIn leads as the best professional social networking site in the world. Before the pandemic, not many utilized LinkedIn to the fullest apart from uploading an uninteresting profile and logging in once in a while. Subsequent to the pandemic-led job loss and the great resignation, millions of job-seekers stepped out of their comfort zones to maximize the potential of their LinkedIn profile.
Slack
Initially, Slack was set up for organizations’ internal collaboration but it soon transformed itself into a networking tool to connect with professionals and hire exceptional talent. With more than 3 million active users on a daily basis, Slack now has digital communities based on specific interests, topics and areas of expertise. For job-seekers, Slack channels offer all the advantages of a group chat with real-time responses from recruiters and peer contacts that might lead to an interesting interview offer or referral.
Reskilling and Upskilling
The pandemic accelerated digital transformation in companies worldwide and this required new challenges for employers as well as new skills for employees to succeed in a digitized, AI-driven corporate world. Many job applications were nipped in the bud due to an evident lack of these new skills that were needed to work effectively in a digitized workplace. However, this did not deter the optimism of job-seekers, many of whom embraced lifelong learning and enrolled in certified programs to upskill themselves as AI-literate workers.
Work from Anywhere Roles
With leading companies offering employees flexible, remote as well as hybrid options to work, innumerable job opportunities opened up for work-from-anywhere roles. Smart, AI-literate job-seekers instantly expanded their job search across geographical boundaries and time zones. And they went one step ahead to upskill and prove that they can work from anywhere productively.
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