Facing the Stigma of Covid-19 Job-Loss

Now that states are reopening and many of us are looking to get back into the workforce, the inevitable question comes: What do we do if someone asks about why we’re unemployed?

With how heavy employment is ingrained into us as one of the very core aspects of our being, its natural to feel like its wrong to not have any. Even if, as many politicians will oft repeat “[the coronavirus] is no one’s fault.”

But yet, the fog of it will still hang over us. After all, the questions will come won’t they?:

• What happened? Why are you unemployed? There has to be some people on your team who are still working… what flaw made them pick you?
• What have you been up to? If you haven’t been working, what could you have possibly be doing?
• Have you been engaged in any projects?It’s been a while since the start of the pandemic…are you still up-to-date?

It’s a concern that for the most part, many outside of those impacted by the Great Recession of ’08 had the leisure of not knowing until now. For what we care about, the answers are but a couple:

1. Do we need to put a reason on our resume?
   No, recruiters will be able to tell there’s a gap if the time period of your current job experience does not end with “-to present” or any of its derivatives. If you’re feeling cute, you could even change that to a “-to covid-19,” but I’d recommend a resume to not be a place to feel “cute.”
2. What do we tell recruiters when we apply again?
   If they bring it up, just be honest. In my experience, recruiters don’t often ask about small gaps in history… especially when the very loud reason is something that the whole world is still reeling from.
3. Will it impact my chances?
   Much less so than the fact that after years of declining unemployment, we’re about to be walloped by a deluge of applicants. It’d be a lie to say that those who are still working won’t have an edge up, but that’s assuming everything else is constant — and that’s just not realistic. Even then, it can mitigated as long as you kept yourself busy and continued to “upgrade” yourself professionally during any shelter-in-place or otherwise.
4. What should I do?
   As the tail-end of #3 mentioned, you should have been continuing to upgrade your professional skillset. 2 months is a lot of time, enough to learn a new skill OR let the old ones decay. Unfortunately, reality doesn’t let us engage in the world of should’s but only have’s. If you had done so, great — you’re well prepped and just need to worry about looking forward. If you haven’t, start something now so that you have something going on. The job search might take a while so start something now. Worst case you find something and you can stop (which actually, is the best case). “Best” case you can keep expanding on it as the slog continues.

But overall? It’s answer that we hear too often nowadays, but for good reason: Relax. This is going to be a long and arduous process. It doesn’t help to worry about issues out of our control, and if anything might make it harder to progress if it impacts our state negatively. What’s happened has happened.

Most of all — we’re not alone, rather more than 20 million people are in the same boat. Let’s address it in the ways that we can, keep our heads high and our eyes focused, and strike for what we want.