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When the job market is changing, many are thinking about the future of their careers. It is up to you to decide whether to stay in your place, go to an adjacent profession or get a new specialty. But here’s what you need to know before making this important choice.
Now it is important to maintain a sober mind, assess and analyze the situation without succumbing to panic. For starters, just observe what is happening in your professional field.
In the current conditions, even HR experts at consultations clarify that their advice is relevant only during the day — after that everything can change. This means that it is now difficult to divide career decisions into “right” and “wrong”. It will be different for everyone.
Starting from an assessment of the current situation
The labor market reacts with lightning speed to any crisis shocks. And here it is important to be able to critically evaluate each of your actions as part of a career development plan. Then you will have the opportunity to concentrate on new opportunities.
Let’s start with an analysis of the situation. How does your industry behave in a crisis? How do external economic factors affect your specific employer? How does the situation affect your career goals? Once you answer these questions, move on to concrete actions.
For example, you are an employee in a travel company. By 2020, it became clear that this area is one of the most unstable. If such conditions drive you into stress and you want more stability, then do not delay entering the market.
Check list:
pay attention to your skill set;
write down your professional qualities and competencies;
determine which position you can apply for in the current situation (horizontal or vertical growth).
Also, the situation may look like this: the scope of work suits you completely — it is stable, there are opportunities for growth. But here specifically your profession was under attack. For example, you are an Instagram marketer (an extremist organization banned in Russia). You love marketing and don’t want to move into another field. Here, connect the flexibility of thinking to the critical assessment. It is important to quickly adapt to the launch of alternative sites and understand how you can “get” the skills necessary for work. Today, this can be done remotely on educational platforms.
But for each case, I would like to give one general advice: do not make quick decisions, an integrated approach is important. Ask yourself: What is going on in my company right now? Maybe you need to pay more attention to solving current operational problems, bring significant benefits to the team, and provide support to related functions? What will help you prove yourself as an anti-crisis employee?
The next step is to evaluate your career goals, consider how they can be adjusted and adapted to the current situation.
What’s going on in the market?
Of course, IT remains a popular industry. In terms of the number of vacancies, front-end positions are in first place, while Java, PHP and Python remain the most popular programming languages. At Skillbox, we are seeing increased user interest in the Test Engineer and Cybersecurity Specialist courses. It may seem that most companies only consider middle (manager) and senior (senior manager) candidates, but this is far from the case. Taking into account the shifts in the labor market (in particular geographical ones), even more opportunities open up for “juniors” (beginners), which is a consequence of the aggravation of the shortage of IT personnel and the emergence of new tasks for the development of alternative software. So if you have long wanted, but did not dare to try yourself in this area, now is the time.
If we move away from the IT industry that is being comprehensively discussed today, then demand is also growing today for creators
Brands will compete for audience attention on a limited number of resources and channels. Those who will show memorable, emotional, vivid content will win. This trend opens up opportunities for photographers, videographers, video editors, stylists, designers and copywriters.
I will single out specialties that grow in a crisis situation as a separate item. Now we see a certain interest of employers in applicants who have experience teaching in language schools. Psychological support services are recruiting strong teams of psychologists, coaches, and customer service employees. For yesterday’s student or novice psychologist, this is a great opportunity to start: you can acquire a loyal customer base and consolidate the skills acquired during your studies. For more experienced professionals, this is an opportunity to “pump” a personal brand.
Making an informed decision
In conclusion, I repeat that the main thing now is to make decisions in a balanced way. If your company is not optimizing staff, your industry is not shaking, and you are satisfied with the current salary, consider whether it is really worth taking active steps. During this period, you can shift the focus of attention and devote more time to the quality of your tasks, learning.
If for some reason you decide to change your specialty, first of all analyze what competitive advantages you have.