How to Navigate in Today’s Job Market
So, you are looking for a job. Unfortunately, the whole world is engulfed by the Covid-19 crisis. Like everything around us, finding a job in today’s scenario has also changed.
Are you confused about:
- How to find a job in today’s market? 👩💻
- How can you stand out among hundreds of applicants? 👩💻
- Can I still negotiate in the current situation where everyone is happy to just stay employed? 👩💻
In a joint event conducted by Women Who Code San Francisco and Women Who Code Silicon Valley chapters, Zaheer and Zuhayeer from Levels.fyi spoke about navigating in today’s job market effectively.
Levels.fyi is the perfect pitstop to take before making big career decisions. The website helps in comparing career levels and salaries across various companies.
Now let’s find out how to navigate in a Covid-19 job market! 🌟
Finding a job during Covid-19
The current market trends show that the number of job offers has come down, with a few exceptions of companies with an increase in hiring (like Amazon), whose profits have doubled during the pandemic. But overall, there are lesser companies hiring especially for junior roles and recent graduates.
Okay, but what can we do about it?
We can focus on our job search and create inbound opportunities! 💡
Focus your job search to identify which companies are actively hiring and find out their job postings on various websites. There are multiple databases out there with details about companies that are still hiring and positions they are hiring for. Since most jobs are remote now, this is the best time to expand your horizons and not have any location constraints! ✨ 🌐
But, I don’t have enough experience!
That’s right. It is always a chicken and egg situation. 🐔 You need the experience to get a job, but you need a job to get experience! 🥚
Focus on outbound search
- If you do not have the experience, you create it! Use your creativity, find a new product idea, work on developing it. Don’t have the skills to develop it? Invest in yourself and upskill! Join online groups, Slack channels, or clubs that interest you — they may have some amazing projects that you could work on! Personal projects are always appreciated by hiring managers because they are indicators that you are proactive, resilient, and inquisitive. ✨ 💻
- Another great way to build experience is by contributing to open-source projects or by joining a hackathon! For software engineers, GitHub is the best source to find open-source projects. One way to navigate inside Github is to look for most starred repositories. Check other sources such as firsttimersonly to find more open-source projects and join them! 👩💻 ⭐️
Create inbound opportunities
- Add yourself to the layoff list, which will help you get discovered! 💡
- Engage with your network on LinkedIn. Do not be ashamed to post on LinkedIn if your offer was rescinded! 👋
- Update your LinkedIn profile to show that you are open to new opportunities (#ONO). 🆕
- Build a personal brand 💡. Having a constant LinkedIn presence helps you to brand yourself. Commenting on other people’s posts, answering questions, helping out people by commenting for better reach, are all great ways to increase your engagement and to create a personal brand, even when you do not have original content to post. A personal brand gets you noticed, maybe by a future Hiring Manager! 😁
Tips and Tricks
- Build social proof: If you have a rescinded offer in hand, update that in your resume with (Offer Rescinded) next to it. This acts as a perfect social proof to show that you were qualified enough to score the job offer! 📄
- Referrals from friends: Do not shy away! Ask your friends, friends of friends, and maybe their friends for referrals. Most people are willing to help if you ask them! 🤝
- Personalized cold-emailing: Find email ids of recruiters by figuring out email patterns, and use Gmail to confirm them. Most companies use <firstname><lastname>@company.com pattern for emails. Alternatively, use websites like Connect.Clearbit or RocketReach to find recruiter email ids! ✉️ 🤓
You did all this and started getting interviews! 😲 Now comes the next major part!
Recruiting process
- Start conversations: Continue to network with people from the company! Have as many conversation threads as possible, expand your network. 💬
- Maintain flexibility: It is always an employers’ market; Covid, or no-Covid. If you want to schedule the interview on a later date, do so without hesitation. 👩💻
- Line up interviews: For coding/software interviews, try to line up interviews back-to-back, so that you can knock them all off together! 🌟
- Negotiation: Try not to give out a number when talking about salary at the beginning of the process. Check Levels.fyi for the latest salary range data for different companies. Don’t ever hesitate to negotiate! 💵
Negotiation tactics
- Get competing offers! 🌟
- No need to answer everything! If unsure, you can say “I will review and get back to you”. 💭
- Reflect questions back! If asked “what is your current salary?”, ask them back: “What is the salary range you are offering for this level at your company?”. Note that you are not required to disclose your current salary to the recruiter. 🤓
- Don’t be afraid to ask more! 💵
- Don’t back down to tight deadlines or exploding offers! Do not fall for “your offer expires today — accept now!” deadlines, recognize them as tactics. 🤔
- You can negotiate for more than a salary! Negotiation can be non-monetary as well, such as your start date, child care/daycare benefits, additional vacation times, etc. ✨
These are certain ways you can navigate in today’s job market, beating all the odds! Continue to work hard, upskill yourself, do personal projects, keep building your profile, and keep yourself busy.
Remember:
“ If the wind will not serve, take it to the oars!” — Latin proverb. 🚣
This blog is the summary of an event run by the Women Who Code Silicon Valley on July 27, 2020. You can view the recording of the event below.
View and register for upcoming events by our chapter at http://bit.ly/siliconvalley_events.
