As some of you may know if you read my Goals for 2021, you will know that I was starting a new job this year and I’ve now been in my new position for around six week after working a solid six years to the date at my previous job. With this blog slowly becoming more of a lifestyle blog, I wanted to share some tips with you and my experience on both securing and starting a new job whilst in a national lockdown. I know times are tough and somewhat daunting at the moment, but that shouldn’t stop you going after your dream job or progressing within your career!
Here are a few of my tips on securing and starting a new job whilst in lockdown!
I just want to start off this post with a slight disclaimer because I am fully aware of how many people have been affected job wise during this pandemic with many losing their jobs and/or being furloughed during this time and I don’t want this post to come across as insensitive or ignorant. I myself was furloughed for around eighteen weeks during the first lockdown and the company I worked for at the time unfortunately had to make the painful decision to make a certain percentage of employees redundant, and although I was lucky enough to keep my job that doesn’t mean I wasn’t affected by it all. My heart goes out to anyone during this pandemic who has been affected job/career wise and I hope that this post helps in some way to give you a boost to get yourself out there, and know you’re worth! With all that being said, let’s get into some tips on securing and starting a new job whilst in lockdown…
Sign Up for Job Alerts on Indeed
One thing that I have found to be a massive motivator when I was looking for jobs was to sign up for job alerts through Indeed that match the job sector/job title you are looking for but what is also handy is that you can set the location too! Once you’ve set up these alerts, you will be emailed when new positions come up in your area, taking the hassle and time out of searching through job advertising websites. For example, I set up a job alert a long long while ago and it’s all because of that, that I was alerted to the job advert for my now current job role. If it wasn’t for me setting up that alert, I doubt I would have seen the job advert let alone applied for it.
Keep Your CV and Portfolio Up to Date
This is one tip that I wish I had done because I am not going to lie to you my CV and portfolio were not up to date what so ever and I had to scramble to pull together my CV, portfolio and cover letter over a weekend. It was stressful to say the least and given that I had had so much time off during furlough where I could have updated it, I didn’t and I was massively kicking myself for not doing so sooner. Ensuring your CV and portfolio are up to date just takes the stress out of applying for job roles, meaning when a job ad pops up that you want to apply for, you can quickly tweak your CV and get it submitted easy peasy!
Interview Prep is Key
If you’re anything like me, I didn’t and still don’t have that much interview experience given that I was in my previous job role for six years so when I secured an interview for my now job safe to say I was sh*tting it. Not only was I nervous for the interview itself but I was even more nervous because my interview was over Zoom, something again that I had little to no experience with. Now in hindsight what is great about having an interview over Zoom is that you can have your notes open to the side of your screen to help you through the interview if you get stuck or have a random mind blank. This is why I say that prepping for your interview is key in securing a job, obvious I know but having the prep that I did really helped me breeze through my interview and made my interview so much easier and chill. Every interview is different but there are many generic interview questions that you can find online and I just ensured to have a paragraph or two at the ready and somewhat rehearsed, so that I didn’t stumble or couldn’t answer a question. I always say that you get back what you put in, so if you put in the time and effort, no doubt things will work out for you in the end.
Visit Your New Office Before Your Start Date
Once you have secured a new job role one of the biggest tips I can give you is to plan a visit to your new office/place of work prior to your start date, not only to familiarise yourself with your new commute but to also meet the people within your new team and get a feel for the office vibe. For me this was really important due to my interview being over Zoom, as I find that you can’t always get a gage on peoples personalities and it doesn’t give you the opportunity to visit the office and meet the team as you would with a normal pre-covid interview. So around a month before I started my new job I visited the offices along with another girl joining the team and it just set in stone for me how I had 100% made the right decision and it just got me so excited for my start date to arrive!
Enjoy the Process & Don’t Put Too Much Pressure on Yourself
As nerve wracking and stressful as applying for jobs can be, it is 100% a process that you can learn so much from and gain so much more confidence from. For me my interview was actually a really enjoyable experience and one thing that I learnt through my interview process was knowing my worth and what I am actually capable of. What also was really rewarding was having someone else recognise these things and that alone gave me the biggest confidence boost, and made me realise that I am capable of achieving so much more within my life and career. Trust the process, enjoy the process and don’t be too hard on yourselves!
So those are a few tips on securing and starting a new job during lockdown that I learnt through my recent interview process and I hope they give you some pointers, or the kick to get searching for new a job!
Have any of you recently started a new job?
