Dare I mention we are running into Christmas, which is normally a time of year when recruitment slows and people put their job searches on hold. So why is now a good time to think about changing jobs?
With the average time to hire being 41 days if you’re hired now you’ll hopefully be in post just in time for Christmas!
Imagine starting your new role in November, with a nice pay rise and new things to learn rather than the same old s*** but a different day. Even if you don’t quite make it into post in December, you could be looking forward to 2023 and a fresh new career rather than thinking here we go again and counting the days to your next holiday.
According to the most recent CIPD Labour Market Survey, published this summer, the recruitment market is still buoyant with 7 out of 10 employers surveyed saying they were going to be recruiting in the next 6 months. With the level of recruitment still remaining high you will have your pick of jobs to choose from.
However LinkedIn's most recent survey shows that vacancy levels in September 2022 fell 11% on last year. It reports that this downward trend is likely to continue and that those companies offering remote working is also falling.
If you want to take advantage of the current dearth of candidates and ensure you have the best pick of vacancies you need to start thinking about blowing the dust off your CV now.
Here’s 4 other reasons why now might be a good time for you to consider that next career move!
1. 47% of employers surveyed by the CIPD have hard to fill vacancies
If an organisation has a hard to fill vacancy, they may be more tempted to consider someone with transferrable skills who is looking to move sectors, or someone with the right attitude who can be trained to do the parts of the job they just haven’t had the opportunity to experience.
2. Organisations are advertising jobs with more flexibility than before.
The current recruitment market is tough for recruiters, they are looking at how to attract people to work in their organisation. One of the ways they are doing it is to look at flexible working, you may have noticed the recent adverts that practically say tell us what you’re prepared to work and we’ll fit a job around you.
From the recruiter’s perspective (if they’re pragmatic about it) having a really productive and engaged employee for four days a week is much better than having a vacancy for months on end. Or worse a disengaged employee present for five days! That's why now could be the time to negotiate that shorter working week, with a new employer because your existing employer is adamant it won’t work.
3. If you are staring at a 3% pay rise or even a pay freeze, changing jobs could be the answer to growing your salary.
It’s sad but true that often a new organisation sees your worth far more than your existing one, who are in the habit of taking advantage and are probably telling themselves you’ll never leave.
According to Indeed.com the average to ask for when being offered a new job is between 10 – 20% that’s at least in line with inflation, which is more than most pay rises this year. They temper this with making sure you’ve done a bit of market research so you don’t totally price yourself out of the market, but as my brother used to say “if you don’t ask you don’t get”
4. The Bank of England are predicting the level of unemployment will rise in by mid 2023.
The Bank of England are predicting recession by the end of the year/Q1 of 2023, what this means is that unemployment will follow with a lag of 4 – 6 months if past trends are anything to go by.
As the recession kicks in two things happen, firstly the number of available vacancies drops as organisations batten down the hatches and become a little more cautious. If they are potentially looking to restructure or down size the first thing that happens is a recruitment freeze.
The second thing that happens is as the numbers of vacancies reduce the number of people looking for jobs is increasing, as organisations start to shrink their headcount. This means the recruitment market is no longer an employee's market and it becomes tougher to get an interview. Those hard to fill vacancies suddenly have lots of good applicants who have found themselves out of work, through no fault of their own.
If this has sparked you to think about blowing the dust off your CV, but the task of reviewing it feels like a bit of an epic task, here’s a few tips to get you started.
If it’s been a while since you reviewed your CV, sometimes starting from scratch can be a good thing. Here’s Why:
You spend a lot of time trying to decide what to cut out and trying to squeeze it into 2 pages.
By taking a look at a job you’d like to apply for and stripping out your achievements and starting again it could actually save time. It also means you’re only including things that are relevant to the role you’re applying for rather than all the ‘history’.
Technology forms a big part of recruitment.
If it’s been a few years since your CV had an outing, technology probably plays a much larger role in the recruitment process than it did when you last used your CV. A large number of organisations use something called Applicant Tracking Systems to review and shortlist CV, it saves them time. If your CV isn’t written with these in mind, you may automatically end up in the reject pile for no other reason than having a picture or tables in your CV that you used to make it look nice or fit the page.
Want to know more about Applicant Tracking Systems and how they work click HERE to download a free factsheet that tells you everything you need to know!
The Key is Key Words
Creating a CV that uses the same terminology as the advert is vital, if you are talking about HR Partner and the advert is using People Partner, or you’re talking collaboration and they’re talking team work, the technology may not identify you as a good candidate.
Don’t be tempted to use that old trick you were taught back in the early 2000’s where you use white text, and stuff your CV with key words that way. The technology has moved on since then and it will potentially pick these words up and print them on the CV that the recruiting manager sees and they will know you’ve been cheating. Not a great way to start your relationship!
Support to Rewrite Your CV
Sure you can ask a friend of a friend who apparently works in recruitment, you can download a £7 template off Etsy or pay someone a £5 on Fivrr to have a quick look at your CV and give you some tips, but that’s a bit like deciding to do a bit of DIY plumbing, it can be a costly mistake and you end up wet.
If this could be your opportunity to get a 10% pay rise are you really going to leave that in the lap of someone who values their work at £5? I thought not.
The other option is to work with a professional CV writer, who will cost more than a £5, but will bring their expertise along when they spend time talking to you about what you do and how you do it. They review your CV, share lots of handy hints and tips. They use what they have learnt on the call to take the pain away from re-writing your CV. You’ll be presented with a tech friendly format that makes you sound professional and gives you a confidence boost.
If this sounds more like how you would like to work, then click to find out more and book!
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