5 Career Development Suggestions While Searching For A Job

This is Part 1 of a series of posts I will have on COVID and the work place. In this post, we focus on career development suggestions. Look out for other posts coming soon on employee selection tips and reintegrating employees back into the office after being out for a while.

Recent pandemic jobs numbers have suggested that the U.S. job market is difficult right now with COVID-19 cases ramping up again (see the following links for reference: Washington Post Article and NPR Article). More people are unemployed and fewer companies are hiring right now. In addition to the obvious challenges that unemployment presents for millions of Americans, this means that any job posting out there inevitably has more candidates for job postings and may even have much more qualified applicants for the job. So, a job search is likely going to take longer right now than it normally would. That said, you can still take strides in your career development apart from looking at job postings.

I have a few tips that could help you professionally make the most of the time that you have. This post is a little bit misnamed because I think that these are great things to be doing regardless of your job status. But they can be especially useful during a time when a job may not come as quickly as you want due to things outside of your control. My sincere hope is that no one will have to read this because they are unemployed for an extended period of time.

Continually Refine Your Resume

Sometimes it feels like updating a resume is a once every year kind of a task. But especially while you’re looking for jobs, you should have a process of continual improvement for your resume. As you are looking at job postings, you may find that some of your resume points are more applicable than others. You may consider having a very long form resume that you never actually give to anyone. It just has all of your work experience and all of the things that you can show to a potential employer. As jobs come up, you can revise your long-form resume to show the projects, experiences, and skills that you feel best apply to what the job posting is seeking.

All of this takes time. If you are searching for a job, refining that resume is going to help you be ready for when the job you want comes open. Refining your resume before searching for a job will ensure that you can be an early applicant. In turn, that preparedness will help you make each statement more impactful, more directly applicable to the job you want, and ultimately you’ll get more interviews. This process may even help you see what kinds of jobs you are best suited to have.

Upskill

Many people often feel like they want to sharpen, improve, or obtain new skills sets or knowledge. The tough thing is that when you have a job, you already have a lot of responsibilities and learning new things uses up a lot of time and energy.

There are a number of free resources for things like learning programming languages, statistics, data visualization, software, and many other topics. Check places like your local library for subscriptions that may come with your library card or even YouTube. If you have some money to spend, a place like LinkedIn Learning has a lot of different offerings that can help you get started. Refining your resume may reveal some gaps in your skill set that you want to visit and could be a good way to start identifying the things you want to work on. The learning may even take the form of listening to podcasts for things like career development or involve exploring a new possible career path (Adam Grant’s Work Life podcast is a good one).

Here are a few places that offer online courses in many topics. There are many others, but these are a few that I could find. These also do not include the many free resources online to learning some skills such as YouTube. LinkedIn Learning has been my personal favorite of the ones that I have tried.

I’m a big proponent of continuous learning and local libraries if you can’t tell. Reading has helped me to not just find skills and inspiration, but it has also broadened my point of view so that I can be more creative. Local libraries often have audiobooks for free as well. There may be some books that can inspire your job search and also keep your spirits up during a time that may be really difficult. Reading can help keep your mind active and fresh while still potentially taking a break from thinking about work tasks and job searches directly. Note that I am not specifying the type of books. You may be surprised at how many professional lessons you can take from reading things that are completely unrelated to your work.

In case you need a few to start, here have been some of my recent favorites with their Goodreads page so you can read reviews (no particular order and mostly non-fiction lately):

Becoming by Michelle Obama
How I Built This by Guy Raz (also a great podcast)
Becoming Dr. Suess: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination by Brian Jay Jones
How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton Christensen
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Knowledge Sharing

Finding ways to share your knowledge and to get others’ perspectives is a great way to stay connected to updates in your field and/or to establish new relationships. Sometimes those things may turn into job opportunities, but I wouldn’t use that as the end goal. The ultimate goal should be knowledge sharing for knowledge sharing’s sake. You can continue to learn and may even be able to share something that someone else needs for their work. This can develop a really important skill in team work as well. Adam Grant, business professor at the Wharton School of Business, once said that expertise should be used to build others up. I agree with that sentiment. To me, open and sincere knowledge sharing is a big part of that.

Mentor Others

This is one of the important ways that we can give back. It is similar to the point above, but I wanted to highlight it because it encompasses more than just knowledge sharing. Mentoring often involves encouragement, advice on things broader than skills, and many times just being an empathetic listening ear to someone else. It’s a great way to feel like you can still be a part of something professionally while you look for a new job. If you have been out of a job for a while, you likely have thoughts about work and the things that you wish you knew before getting into your current situation. Share that with someone else and use this experience to make others better.

Final Thoughts

This is a challenging time for many people filled with things that are so far beyond our control that it can be discouraging and de-motivating. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t improve and make professional strides. The good thing is that none of these are time bound to the current situation. Once you are in a position, these can still be helpful tips for continuing to develop yourself. Learn all that you can and bring others along as much as you can.

As always, thanks for reading!

–Brandon
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