The Job Market – Understand it & Navigate it

By Chris Cutting – CV Adviser.

Two types of Market

Broadly speaking, there are two types of job market; “Candidate Driven” and “Job Driven.” Both are dependent on the cycle of economic upturn and downturn.

The “Candidate driven” market is characterised by too few candidates for the available jobs. This happens when the economic cycle is on an upward trajectory. This market tends to see employers competing for candidates and consequently salary levels rise.

The opposite is true in a “Job driven” market. An excess of candidates to available jobs means it becomes a buyers’ market and subsequently salary levels can stagnate or even fall slightly. This usually happens in a down turn.

It is possible that at the end of the furlough scheme in October we may find many more redundancies. Not only that, the landscape of work skills is evolving even more rapidly meaning different skills will be in demand. This represents a number of challenges for the jobseeker.

Navigating a Job driven Market

For job seekers (as well as employers) there are various intricacies and pitfalls to navigate due to an evolving job market, level of salary scale and/or seniority, skill sets in demand or not, systems development, globalisation, the changing needs of businesses, need for newer skill sets and recently the impact of Covid19 measures.

Experienced Recruiters/CV Coaches/Outplacement consultants are aware of these factors from experience of operating in upturns and downturns. As a result, they should be well equipped to steer job seekers through either market, especially those facing job loss.

Help in the Job Driven market

Experienced, knowledgeable and caring outplacement CV-coaching and Recruitment-consultants will come into their own in any market. If you need any of these professionals, hopefully you’ll find ones who genuinely care for you the individual and want to help as much as they can in these uncertain times.

How do you determine if your consultant cares? The only way is to spend time with them via email, phone and online video conferencing calls. The presence or absence of positive values will quickly become apparent by the treatment you receive.

Getting the best from your Consultant

To get the best out of a consultant, don’t forget to approach them with a positive open mind rather than being cynical. They too are under pressure for different reasons and are not immune to downturns. Believe it or not, recruiters also face job losses at this time. This is why in downturns you get a host of new and independent recruiters suddenly appear!

To get the best out of a consultant, develop a two-way-relationship not just one-way. Bear in mind that at this time consultants, particularly recruiters, are facing an extraordinary influx of applicants as a result of thousands of job losses and it takes time to give each applicant the attention they require.

Wishing you the very best of luck in your searches and relationships with the various consultants you’ll use and remember; “Be Kind”; none of us are without our daily challenges.

CV Adviser in Association with FourDayWeek