RSM Thailand
COVID-19 has affected executive recruitment agencies, executive recruiters, job seekers, and businesses across the globe in an unprecedented way. Millions continue to experience layoffs, furloughs, and reduced working hours. If your industry has been affected by COVID-19, and they’re no longer as many job opportunities available, it may be necessary for you to consider career changes or different industries altogether. Perhaps you have desired a career change for some time but you are having trouble with how to sell yourself properly, or even matching yourself to what employers are looking for different types of positions or industries. We are going to share with you our five-step process that you can take to make you a more attractive candidate for new employers and also to transition into a new career.
This is the foundation for how you should approach your new job search. You really need to understand the new job requirements and what specific types of duties, knowledge, or skills will be required. So, you need to be very familiar with all of this and then be completely honest with yourself, ask yourself if you have done anything that is similar to what the job is asking for.
On the other hand, if this job is requiring very specific technical knowledge and you’ve never studied or gained this type of knowledge, for example, it’s a programming role and you have no programming experience, then you have to be realistic about where do you “bridge” that gap. If it means that you need to take on additional education, then so be it but you need to understand;
√ what they want
√ what you have
√ what is the gap
√ what are the differences
√ what are the similarities
Once you’ve done your research and you understand what that job is looking for and you understand where you’re at and that there’s a “gap” then what you want to do is you want to build a “bridge” or find the means to get to the other side. A lot of people think that it shouldn’t be too difficult to get into another industry or to get into a different type of job as long as the company like you but executive headhunters and executive recruiters will tell you differently as we at RSM Recruiters Thailand would. But it can be quite difficult and the reason for that is because you haven’t done the work of “bridging yourself to get to that other side” before.
“Bridge” means anything that they are asking for that you currently don’t have that you could get before you take on that job. It could be education, certain types of certifications, or courses that you need to take before you pursue that job. Then go ahead. That is part of your bridge.
You can also build a good bridge by taking “a bridge role” which is solid and will help you to find your way to that other important side. The bridging role is the in-between position. It’s not the ideal dream job that you want: it’s one step outside of what you’re doing right now but one step before what you really want to do.
If what you are now and where you want to be is a really big gap and it’s really hard to reach that great divide, then this is something you need to consider to bridge the way for yourself and set yourself up for success as well as an arrival platform in the long term.
As mentioned in step one that you have to first understand and do your research on what the job, company, and industry are all looking for. In this step, you need to focus on yourself. Do you need to ask yourself?
√ what do you have?
√ what are your skills?
√ what are your key experiences?
√ what have you done throughout the years?
If you have zero work experience or knowledge that is relevant to the job or industry in question, you need to figure out what are your “transferable skills”. For example, the job you want to apply requires you to perform a certain type of analysis or research. If you did that in school or any of your past jobs, then that skill is transferable. So, you just have to start keeping track of skills that you have, experiences that you’ve achieved and ensure that they match up to the role that you’d love to apply for and eventually undertake. Take time to look at yourself, be honest with yourself, ask yourself, and try to find what you can actually really do because you do have skills and experiences that can be applicable to the right role if you are looking at the right opportunities.
Trying to switch careers or switching industries is not easy. It doesn’t happen as quickly as if you were just desiring to make a lateral move from one job to another. Career switching is a huge undertaking and it may take time. It’s not necessarily going to happen right away because there are many issues to figure out.
When it comes to applying for roles, you need to make sure that you are strategic about it. Pay attention to the new opportunities that come up and start to identify what are the right opportunities to apply for.
The bridging role may perhaps be the right next step for you and not necessarily the ideal dream job that you’d love to have five years from now but the one that will get you to where you actually want to be so pay attention to those openings. As soon as those roles show up on the job boards, you need to be able to pounce on them and submit your resume as quickly as possible. The earlier you take action with respect to a job opening, the higher are your chances that your resume is going to be looked at.
When you’re applying for a role you need to tailor your resume to that role as much as possible. What does tailoring mean? It means you need to structure your resume using the right vocabulary, the right phrases, right past experiences achieved, right bullet points so that you are aligned correctly to the available opportunity. When it comes to interviews that are verbal as opposed to writing the concept is exactly the same where you need to prepare and match your answers for them to resemble the available position as closely as possible.
If you want to make that leap from one position to the other, there’s a way to get there but you have to have the correct strategy. You can’t just hope and pray that it’s going to happen.
So, these are five steps on how you can make the transition from where you’re at right now whatever job or industry you’re in to the one that you would love to get into.
If you need help in this area, our Recruitment Consultants at RSM executive recruitment agencies can advise how to write a compelling attractive resume that will get you more interviews as well as how to develop strong answers to interview questions so that you know exactly what you need to say to convince the hiring managers and to select you as their number one candidate.