How to future proof your career despite the coronavirus pandemic

Alongside caring responsibilities, worrying about your family and friends – and increased anxiety levels to manage – you may be finding that this lockdown period is causing you to reflect on your career choices and look more closely at career planning.

Whether you’re furloughed, working from home, business has dried up or you are finding yourself busier than ever, the crisis is making many of us to ponder how to navigate these uncharted waters.

Although it may seem counterintuitive with so much uncertainty around, this time of unprecedented change to our lives and working structures actually presents us with a fantastic opportunity to re-evaluate what we want from our career.

Here are my top tips and tools to help you focus on your career planning and keep taking action.

In every crisis there is an opportunity

Without doubt, some sectors have been very badly hit by the crisis. Travel, leisure, entertainment, the restaurant and hospitality sector… all of these are at a standstill with redundancy and huge losses sadly inevitable as the crisis continues.

However, there are also industries able to provide key things to match our changing needs at this time. Many independent food delivery, cloud computing, telecoms, supermarkets and healthcare companies are thriving and struggling to meet demand.

If you are concerned about how your role and company will fare in the coming weeks – or you are considering a move, take time to look at how your expertise might transfer over to a role in an industry that has had a significant boost in the last few weeks and is actively seeking new employees.

Similarly, if you are freelance, this might be a chance to consider a pivot or a reposition of your work. For example, if you are a freelance writer who is struggling to find consistent work, could you pivot your business model to provide content writing services to the buoyant technology sector for the next few months? Or, if you are a marketing consultant who usually works with B2C retail brands, could you give your knowledge to the B2B sector instead?

Likewise, an online retailer of cards, flowers, luxury goods or a bit of pampering could be a good switch for the time being. Challenge yourself to consider how your skills could benefit a different industry.

Work can really work

You may be finding that, despite all the newfound time you have on your hands, you are starting to recognise all the benefits that work brought, and even missing the things you used to complain about!

Apart from financial stability, work provides us with a sense of our own identity, a way to contribute, a regular routine, social network and a space for learning and interaction.

While it is great that we have begun to master tech to work remotely, it may be that you are starting to miss being at work. Take time to capture these realisations.

Gratitude and appreciation are valuable for mental health and will bring you a renewed vigour when ‘normal life’ is resumed.

Not everything has stopped – career changes can still be made

It’s easy to assume that everyone is either furloughed, working from home or in the essential services – rushed off their feet to maintain our health and safety.

In my conversations with HR professionals in an online forum  I run weekly on zoom and with online conversations on LinkedIn with both recruiters and professionals, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the number of people who are still pursuing their career goals and making changes or taking on new roles in this climate.

The average UK commute time (both ways) before the Coronavirus saw us shift to working from home was 59 minutes. Ask yourself how you can reclaim this hour in your day to help your job search. You could use it to build your online presence, update your CV or use it to keep up with the latest jobs coming up. Revamping your LinkedIn profile, asking ex-clients or colleagues for recommendations or even sharing your expertise via an article will all contribute to your future job searches once normality returns.

If your goal for 2020 was to make a career shift, don’t give up – though much has slowed down in the current hiatus, there is still a lot of business activity taking place… so stay focused and keep taking small steps forward towards your goals