COVID 19: What Should We Do When It Comes To Our Career?

Blog By Divisional Director Andy Strong

You may have seen my previous blog about minimising the impact on your growth plans for 2020 – it touched on advantages within that plan for individuals who are open-minded to exploring new career possibilities.

What it didn’t address, which is a common question being floated in the last 48 hours is what is the right/wrong thing to do for people who are either in a hiring process or debating whether to enter one or not.

A minority of people have felt that due to the uncertainty of everything right now, whether it makes sense to enter into conversations with companies about a possible career change and given everything, they’d rather not and postpone any dialogue.

It’s my view that in times of uncertainty – you’re much better off keeping your options open, what do you have to lose?  No hiring manager would expect anyone to be making a big career decision in this current climate whereby they’re forced to make a decision within an unreasonable time frame – not any that are worth working for at least.

From what I’ve observed, it’s the opposite, companies want to continue conversations, understand if there is a good mutual fit for both the company and individuals, so they can be ready to move faster once this whole pandemic has blown over.

So what is there to lose, why wouldn’t you keep your options open – particularly when so many less fortunate people around us are losing their jobs and being laid off, what they would give to have these options right now?

Now clearly there are exceptions to this, especially if you’re needing to focus your time right now on taking additional care of loved ones – this has to take precedent over everything, including your career – but if you’re working from home, have more available time to be having informal discovery conversations with interesting companies in the relative privacy of your own home, enabling you to qualify where the best place for you to be working in the next 3-5 years of your career once this Coronavirus issue has blown over, why would you not utilise this somewhat unwelcome, but unique opportunity?