If you start searching for a job now, you’ll benefit from the needs of companies to quickly hire before the holiday-season slowdown. If you miss this window of opportunity, position yourself to be ahead of the crowd for early next year.
It’s both an exciting and challenging time for job hunters. There are only two months left in 2022. After being cooped up at home, people will be more eager than ever to take extended vacations and long weekends. You want to be a contrarian. This entails some delayed gratification. Stay the course while most other job seekers take a break during the holidays. With fewer people applying for jobs and interviewing, you’ll stand out.
The odds will turn out in your favour if you keep hustling. It’s a numbers game. If you continually submit résumés to target companies, get job leads from your network, and contribute content on LinkedIn to get noticed, there is a higher probability of achieving interviews leading to a job offer.
This may seem crass, but there will always be some bosses who desperately need to hire someone quickly. They’ll lower their requirements, increase compensation and acquiesce to your work style preference, including working from home as an enticement. By being persistent, you could end up in the right place at the right time, leading to a job offer you never thought was possible.
Challenges You’ll Face
It becomes harder to secure a new job as vacation schedules and personal days are taken, making the hiring process clunky and inconsistent. The human resources person is away when you are available to interview. When the HR representative returns, the business people you need to meet with are not around. The in and out of workers involved with the hiring process creates a loss of momentum. Other end-of-year corporate priorities start taking precedence over the recruiting and onboarding process.
During the last few months of the year, businesses start focusing on closing their books. They conduct annual reviews, determine who will get a promotion or raise and those slated for layoffs, and commence working on the new budget and headcount allotments for 2023.
Many white-collar professionals receive a bonus and stock in addition to their base salary. During this belt-tightening time, corporate leadership is not inclined to buy out five-figure bonuses and stock options to induce job seekers to leave their current employer. Their rationalization is that it’s prudent to wait until candidates receive their bonuses and new salary numbers.
Once a job hunter knows their numbers, they’ll either immediately begin a job search, due to feeling disrespected over the lacklustre total rewards package, or happily remain with their firm because their needs were met.
Sometimes companies have a use-it-or-lose-it budget. Management allocates a specified amount of funds toward hiring new personnel. If the supervisors don’t hire in 2022, the bosses will contend that the open jobs are not mission-critical and will withdraw the job listings. Savvy, experienced managers understand the game and will aggressively look to see if they can hire someone quickly. Otherwise, they’ll lose the budget for next year.
Focusing On Finding A Job In Early January
Despite the clunkiness of November, December and early January, it makes sense for you to keep interviewing. You need to be mentally prepared that most jobs will linger until mid-January 2023. What you hope for is that there will be at least a small number of job openings that managers want to hire eagerly.
Instead of sitting on the sidelines, take action. The holiday season is a great time to rekindle old relationships. Get in touch with former co-workers, college alumni, people in your community, folks you met online and others to build up your network. One of the best ways to find a job is not through responding to a job advertisement, but to have an insider at a company recommend you for the role.
Seek out recruiters who are active in your field. You want them to know all about you. Sell them on your talents, experience, work history, a record of accomplishments, emotional intelligence, and communication skills. Since most headhunters work on contingency searches, they only get paid if they successfully place you. Therefore, the recruiter is highly incentivized to extol your virtues and aggressively pitch you to their clients.
Everyone has areas upon which they can improve upon. Find a mentor to help you devise a plan to accelerate your career. They could offer advice and guidance throughout your job search and career. Utilize the services of career coaches and résumé writers. You can find them on LinkedIn. These career experts provide interview tips, ensure that your résumé looks current and sharp, help with role-playing an interview scenario and offer constructive criticism and feedback.
Write out an elevator pitch. Similar to a catchy commercial on TV or radio, you want to be able to offer your value proposition in a tight, upbeat, excited 30-seconds-to-a-minute sales pitch. It’s also akin to when a politician gives their stump speech with the same talking points.
The goal is to clearly and concisely offer what roles you had at your current or prior firm, some of your great achievements and how your background, talents, education and skills perfectly match the job. Talk in an enthusiastic, but not too over-the-top manner.
Additionally, take a look online for frequently asked questions by interviewers. Then, practice answering the standard, “Why do you want this job? Why should I hire you instead of the other applicants? Can you please tell me about yourself? Where do you see yourself in five years?”
Source: Jack Kelly (Forbes)
The Case of Ghana
The unemployment rate in Ghana is expected to hit 4.80% by the end of 2022 according to Trading Economics and Analysts. This could be a problem or an opportunity if you place the statistics in context with this article. What do I mean here?
Job vacancies are hard to come by these days as they seem almost non-existent, but the holidays are coming, and that means that you can get ahead of fellow job-seekers if you take advantage of the opportunity it presents and how job-seekers typically stop seeking jobs during these periods.
Speaking of jobs, there are many of them available. The only problem is that job-seekers don’t know about these vacancies, and that makes them run around in circles.
For exciting jobs that pay well, just visit dutteeghana.com and shine your eyes. With available jobs in marketing, accounting, software and data, research, food services & catering, communication, graphic designing and so much more, dutteeghana.com is the one site that can link you to that dream job you’ve always wanted.
Log on and apply today. You also deserve a soft life.
