How to Make a Successful Career Change in the Post-Coronavirus World?

By Daniela McVicker

The COVID-19 pandemic has an enormous effect on the job market, forcing many people to leave offices and work from home.

However, this is not the worst alternative. Many people were forced to resign due to massive business shut-downs and most of them lost their main source of income.

According to the report by The Washington Post, over 100,000 businesses that define America’s economy, have closed forever. As a result, thousands of people lost their jobs and now have joined the 20-million army of unemployed Americans. 

However, not only those who lost their jobs will actively search for new employment opportunities when the pandemic ends.

Many people don’t plan to return to their previous workplace after the quarantine at all and consider changing the field completely. For instance, as USA Today reports, 1 in 5 teachers are unlikely to return to reopened classrooms this fall.

You can only imagine how busy the already competitive job market will become as soon as the pandemic ends.

So, what can you do to stand out from the competition and make a successful career change in the post-coronavirus world?

Let’s take a look at the basic skills and competencies to focus on.

1. Build Up Your Skills with Freelance Projects

Before the world had to face the COVID-19 pandemic, the gig economy was developing very slowly. In 2018, the number of freelancers in the U.S. reached 57 million with only a 3.7% increase over the previous five years.

Today, the situation has changed.

The pandemic has forced people across the globe to use their skills in a different way and explore freelance projects. For many, this became an opportunity to earn money and stay afloat.

As a result, many of those who started exploring the gig economy during the quarantine, now plan to explore this path further and remain independent contractors.

However, if you still plan to find an in-office job after the pandemic, you can still benefit from freelancing to build up the skills you will need for your future job.

Here’s how you can do it.

Let’s say you would like to get a position as a content writer/manager. You can start by exploring job ads for this position on LinkedIn. When you find a position you might be interested in, go through the list of requirements and responsibilities:

Using this list, you can evaluate the skills you already have, find weak spots, and start looking for freelance projects that could help you improve them.

For instance, you might be interested in improving your writing skills by writing reviews of different online services, like Grabmyessay review here, or find a gig that offers you to run a blog on WordPress.

Choose freelance gigs according to the field you plan to work in. It will help you stand out from the competition because you will already have all the competencies and experience that others might not have.

2. Work on Your Tech Competencies

When the coronavirus pandemic began, many companies found themselves unprepared to run the business remotely. According to the report by the Society for Human Resources Management, many companies didn’t have the budget and resources needed to successfully transfer employees to the home office.

But even if these companies had the budget to operate remotely, most of them would still need time to teach their employees how to use the new tech, like project management software, which they have never used before.

What does it mean for you?

If you want to remain competitive in the post-coronavirus job market, you need to start working on your tech competencies.

These competencies might include:

• cloud and infrastructure – necessary to store and distribute data
• cybersecurity – operating the VPN and other security controls necessary to ensure the safety of the data
• data science – might be needed if you will work with statistical data, modeling, and mapping

If you have little knowledge of these competencies, you can pick up a relevant course on Udemy or Coursera to learn these skills.

But in case you already have these competencies in your arsenal, you can still get a freelance gig to improve them and get more experience.

3. Learn How to Choose the Right Employer for You

Our last tip is not about getting new or developing the existing skills, it’s advice on how to choose the right employer in the post-coronavirus world.

There are a lot of reasons why businesses had to close because of the pandemic, from the budget issues to the lack of resources.

But some of these businesses had to shut down because they failed to prepare for the changes that were already on their way, like hybrid teams and remote work. The pandemic has simply accelerated these changes.

That’s why, when looking for a new employer, you need to check whether they:

• promote flexibility
• offer remote training
• constantly invest in improving the IT infrastructure
• facilitate diversity and are open to hiring hybrid teams

Using The JobCrowd’s solution, you can check employers for all of these requirements:

When looking for an employer, also pay attention to how they handled their staff’s needs during the quarantine and how they transitioned to remote work. If this situation repeats in the future, you need to know that you can trust your employer and retain your job position.

Over to You

We’re living in a very confusing time, but after the pandemic ends, it won’t become less confusing.

It will be hard to figure out how to continue building your career in the post-coronavirus world since so many companies have shut down and the job market is filled with unemployed people.

The only thing you can do now is not to waste time, build up your existing competencies with freelance projects, and improve your tech skills. And, when the time comes, you can start searching for an employer.

Hopefully, our tips will help you adjust to the rapid changes brought by the pandemic and make a successful career change in the post-coronavirus world.

About the author: Daniela McVicker is a marketing consultant, blogger, and professional writer. Currently, she is focused on helping students with their college tasks by writing articles for All Top Reviews and other educational platforms. You can follow Daniela on Twitter @danielamcvick.

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