During periods of economic uncertainty, conservatism among job seekers generally increases. Many candidates halt their job search in murky times as the tendency is toward risk aversion. Counterintuitively, this is precisely the opposite approach you should be taking.

Don’t Pause Your Job Search, Seize the Opportunity.

Instead of following the herd, you should take an aggressive approach to the market. Think of Warren Buffett’s value investing approach in this scenario – while other investors are hoarding cash and cowering in fear, he is out evaluating opportunity to be gobbled up at a discount to its intrinsic value.

“Be greedy when others are fearful” – Warren Buffett

In this scenario, career advancement represents a value play as fundamentally there is less competition from your risk-averse peers who have pulled back their chips from the table (if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphor!). This is particularly true in a professional services sphere where demand for services is perhaps only increased during a period of volatility as opposed to more elastic goods and services that are perhaps even inaccessible.

Smart job seekers look at the opportunity ahead of them and take advantage of the circumstance to get ahead of the competition.

Get Ahead of the Competition.

1. Your competitors are cutting their job search down, so it is prime time for you to be reaching out to recruiters and hiring managers, getting your foot in the door and positioning yourself to be top of mind when the floodgates open.
2. Companies haven’t stopped hiring; HR Managers may have a few other things on their plates at the moment, like getting the logistics of virtual on-boarding figured out, but rest assured many employers are still actively recruiting for top talent.

Even if companies have paused filling open roles to attend to urgent health and safety matters, they will be backlogged to find great people in the very near future. For senior-level and executive roles, it can take anywhere from three months on up to three years to find the right career move. If you stop your search now and wait, how far behind the competition will you be if you hadn’t paused your search?

Ready to make the move and kickstart your job search now while the market is just right? Reach out to financial services recruitment team lead, Will Koutney, at william.koutney@cml.ky for a confidential conversation.