Tips for Searching for a Job in a Recession

You have heard the rumors that your company is going to be announcing yet another round of write-downs and lay offs. Maybe you have been sneaking off during your lunch hour to make clandestine calls to headhunters and surreptitiously sending out resumes from your gmail account during work. Or maybe, in the last month or two of bloodletting on Wall Street, your boss sat you down, thanked you for your years of service to the company, and told you all about the wonderful severance package the company was prepared to offer you, before shaking your hand with a grimace and ushering you out the door.

In that case, perhaps you have recently enjoyed a relaxing week or two of vacation, catching up with friends and family and cleaning up your apartment. Or maybe you have been of getting up at noon and watching day time talk shows, while sitting on your couch in your underwear and eating Capt’n Crunch.

Either way, you are in the market for a new job. Even if you are perfectly happy at your current job, and none of these recession-inspired scenarios apply to you, you might be curious to see what’s out there. Here, The Glass Hammer presents a few tips to help you in the process of searching for a job in a recession (or a down-market, or a “temporary blip on the economic radar,” depending on which cable news channel you watch) ….

1. Be creative in marketing and packaging your skill set. Many investment bankers who worked on asset-backed securities or other sectors hit hard by the capital crisis have been laid off, and are all on the market for new jobs at the same time. Unfortunately, there are not too many banks who are looking for more people with expertise in packaging mortgages into complex securities with high bond ratings these days. So, if your area of expertise is not so popular anymore, think about what else you can do. Go back to areas you focused on in your early years of employment and brush up on topics you studied in college or grad school that might make you more marketable. In interviews and on your resume, play up experience that you might have in working on a tight budget, cutting costs and increasing the bottom line. These characteristics will distinguish you from the competition in the lean months to come.
2. Work your expanded network. In a time of economic uncertainty, companies may still be hiring, but they are cautious. They are more risk averse and want someone who is tried and true. Thus, people are more likely to hire those they know, either though the recommendations of trusted colleagues or through their extended network.

Career coach and frequent Glass Hammer contributor Caroline Ceniza-Levine explains, “Now more than ever employers are dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s before hiring. They want to be sure. They want a known quantity. So getting to know people will be very important.”

“While developing relationships is not the fastest way to find a job, in this market everything’s slow, so you might as well take time to do it the right way. Even if you don’t get every job, by doing this, you position yourself well for the future,” says Caroline.

3. Use technology to your advantage. As long as you are in front of the computer, use it to your advantage. Post on blogs, write your own blog, or find other tech savvy ways to showcase your skills. Writing your own blog is a great way to get noticed and show your unique ideas and expertise to people in your field. Generating buzz around your “personal brand” can help you get hired in a tight market and differentiate you from your job-hunting peers. While applying to jobs online can be helpful, let your search begin with job boards, but not end there. Read up on companies you are interested in and try to contact people there about setting up in person meetings, even if they don’t have any current positions listed online.
But don’t just exist in cyberspace. Get out there and pound the pavement the old fashioned way, by meeting colleagues and old friends for business lunches, informal interviews, or attending training events and cocktail receptions where you will run into people you know in the industry,

Armed with these tips, we hope to make your job search go a bit more smoothly. Have some tips of your own? Have some tactics that have worked for you in the past? Share the love and pass them on to other readers. What goes around, comes around …