The Job Market Has Shifted, Should You? – Part 2

As we enter into another month of living and working in the world of Covid-19, today we’re bringing you concrete tools and data around how you should consider moving forward, career-wise as the global economy is shifting, from Katy Piotrowski, M.Ed., LPC, Licensed Professional Career Counselor (LPC) and Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW).

In case you missed it, last blog post we talked about current market data, taking a look at sectors that are expanding and shrinking, to help you with your career planning. You can read that here.

Today our discussion is around how change can impact you and how to respond effectively.

The first thing I want to talk about is your satisfaction. 70% of people on average are not happy in their work. So these market shifts we’re seeing could have a silver lining if people are pushed out of jobs they didn’t like in the first place. What I aim to give you today are some tools in figuring out how you can be happier, if you make that shift.

Whether you are forced to make a shift or choose to make a shift one consideration is that simply taking on another job is not necessarily going to make you happier. I had a conversation recently with a client who is job searching, and she said “I want to land something working remotely.” When asked what do you want to be doing remotely, she said “I just want to be able to work from home.” I finally nailed her down to something more specific after we talked awhile. This is a good example of the importance of being thoughtful about what you’re choosing and why you’re choosing a certain job.

Another factor to think about will be your learning curve. If you’ve been in a specialty for two years or more, you have a good depth of expertise in that kind of work. With that comes a sense of mastery, satisfaction, and knowing your job. When you have to shift to something you don’t know, that can be very unsettling. One guideline is that on average, if you’re making a shift from a specialty that you’ve mastered, the bigger the change you make the more impact on the learning curve. Research shows that you can expect feeling uncomfortable in a new specialty for one month for every year you were in your former niche.

I frequently work with people who have been doing the same kind of work for 15, 20 years. If they end up shifting to something very different, they’re probably looking at a year and a half, two years before they start to feel like they have their feet underneath them. And that can be unsettling. But if you know how to anticipate this, you get through it. One thing that can really help with the learning curve is journaling. A number of studies have proven if you get your thoughts out of your head in a productive way – for at least 15 minutes a day – your transition can progress up to three times faster. If not handled in a productive way all those fears, confusions and concerns are whirling

around in your head with nowhere to go.

Another factor to consider is demand. The demand for the list of roles and industries that have been impacted has gone way down. So in thinking about what shifts you may want to make, you want to be thinking about where will the demand lie? This can be hard to predict, but to some degree you can make some good choices. Ideally you will want to choose something where you’ll be in demand for a period of time.

The last thing I want you to think about related to your shift is income. The further you get away from your core expertise the less income leverage you will have. Some people think “I’ve been making $50,000 a year, and I’m going to shift from A to B, and I’ll aim to be making at least that when I make a change.” Unless you can demonstrate expertise at that income level,

employers will not be paying the same thing. Often you have to take a couple steps back in order to move forward.

I have a client now who has been working in sales of oil and gas for a long time. Oil and gas has taken a dive, he’s tired of the roller coaster ride and is looking at other niches to consider. He’s done what I describe as career research interviews (we’ll talk more about that in Part 3) and he’s come across green energy as something that may be showing good future prospects and he could possibly maintain a decent level of income.

One of my favorite stories I’ve named The Maybe Farmer is appropriate for where we are in the world today. There was a farmer who had his son working with him. One day the farmer’s horse escaped and ran away. They couldn’t catch it. One of his neighbors said “Oh no, I’m so sorry that happened to you.” And The Maybe Farmer said “Maybe yes, maybe no; we’ll see.”

The next day the horse came back and brought several wild horse friends with him. So now rather than having just one horse, the farmer now had several. A neighbor said “Well, aren’t you lucky? Hurray.” And the farmer said “Maybe yes, maybe no; we’ll see.”

A few days later the farmer’s son broke his leg while trying to train one of those wild horses. The neighbor came back and said “I’m so sorry that happened to you.” To which The Maybe Farmer said “Maybe yes, maybe no; we’ll see.”

The Maybe Farmer was right in not making a quick judgement, because the next day the military showed up to recruit the son, who was unable to join because of his injury. So the neighbor said “Hooray, he dodged that bullet and does not have to join the military.” And the farmer said “Maybe yes, maybe no; we’ll see.”

Most of us have been through some pretty significant changes one way or another in our lives. Will this pandemic affect us positively or negatively? Who knows? It’s hard to say; maybe yes, maybe no. We’ll see. So I remember this when I’m faced with challenges. Is this really going to be a bad thing? There have already been a number of good things that have come out of some of the shifts I’ve experienced.

Next post we’ll be sharing safe and effective career exploration strategies to help you discover if a career change is right for you.