www.fastcompany.com: The coronavirus crisis has the world economy in upheaval. If you’re not already hurting, you surely know someone who is. Layoffs, shutdowns, cutbacks, and salary cuts are happening across industries, both blue collar and white. The nation is in a state of emergency, and we’re all but certainly heading toward, if not already in, a recession.
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This article discusses 4 things that will help people looking for jobs during the coronavirus outbreak. However, I feel like these 4 tips can be applied to finding jobs anytime, outbreak or not. Building an extensive network on LinkedIn or Facebook that employers could see is extremely important in finding jobs. Even just having a link to a profile on a resume increases the chances of being hired. During the pandemic, many people are stuck at home and thus it would be easier to connect with people online and get recommendation letters on a profile to bolster chances of being hired once the job market is up and running again. What intrigued me was the fact that some people don't write cover letters that are tailored to the specific job with their resume. To write a personalized cover letter has been drilled into me from many people in order to get jobs, and now I understand more. Cover letters demonstrate people's ability to write, as well as their job experience and personal engagement with the company. Employers spend time getting to know potential employees. People who wish to get hired should do the same as well. A two-page resume sounds long, and it probably only works for those that have enough work experience to cover two pages. Addressing work gaps is important as well. Extremely useful article.
I went into this article with hope. My summer job is still very unsure whether or not it will continue or not. Not only is my commited job unsure, but my back up internship, due to it being a theatre internship where the audience is thousands of people, is very unsure if they will have their regular season. I am in the boat currently trying to figure out if I need to apply for other jobs so that I can have some income over this summer so I have spending money for the next year or not. But I have no way of knowing if I need to and probably won't for another month. I went into this article assuming that it was a theatre work article, but was saddened to find out that it was not. A lot of the article talked about how to update your LinkedIn profile. And that is one platform that I never know what to do with. I could theoretically make an amazing profile and add all the people I know on it, but I have no idea if people in this field ever use this platform. I would hate to put in all this work for nothing. I guess if I wanted to go outside of this field it might be useful, but so is just finding job openings and submitting a resume.
I thought this article would make me feel overwhelmed but it was strangely comforting. I had no idea that addressing a gap in work was standard, let alone helpful, information to put on a resume. Resumes always seemed like such formal documents to me but I have to remember that they represent people, not machines. I also did venture onto LinkedIn on one lonely afternoon and found it to be an effort to build a profile. Not too difficult, but it does seem to be less geared towards our industry. Most of my classmates do not have profiles, and those that do don't seem to have hundreds of contacts like this article suggests. Or it could be because I'm still in school. Regardless, I'm glad I have it for the future. The point this article makes about cover letters is also helpful, but does not feel relevant in this moment when there aren't jobs to apply to.
Most of the tips in this article were covered in our cover letter/ resume lesson during production planning. That being said, these tips are helpful for job hunting under most circumstances, not just right now when we’re in crisis but also during regular times. I did find the first point to be valuable, that we need to fortify our network in digital spaces. Especially right now, a big portion of our lives have transitioned to become online. Hence, in order to find a job, or have someone find you, we need to have a strong online presence. However, I don’t know how to feel about these tips. I feel optimistic and comforted that I already know them. But at the same time, I feel scared that they are just what I would do to get a job during regular times. There isn’t really anything I can change in response to emergency situations. I think this is a good time for all of us, employers and employees, to think about what we can do about the hiring process and staffing when this happens again (because it will).
This is something that I have been thinking about a lot, as theatres cancel their internship programs and my peers who are seniors enter an extremely uncertain job market. This article also puts the state of our world in a very interesting perspective, as the nation and the world undergoes a major crisis in which many people are concerned about their own health and the health of loved ones, and their primary focus is not working. However, as we have seen, the majority of Americans are without a job and as young people entering the job market this is a major concern. The suggestions in this article are really creative ways to continue to keep your foot in the door even in this time of uncertainty. A common theme with all of these suggestions involves buttoning up resumes and cover letters in order to make them more specific and tailored for various jobs. I also thought that the suggestion to network digitally takes advantage of the fact that so much work is able to be done online during this time! Elena Keogh
I think this is all helpful catch-all advice for any working professional. I do think that some of the tips are a little harder to just dive right into as someone in the theater world, but as this semester has proven, it is possible to improvise in the world of theater and the arts (A SHAMELESS STANDING O FOR OUR VIRTUAL RUBE). It’s been fun to add another layer of creativity to our already creative tasks, and it has helped me think out of the box. I definitely feel like this out of the box thinking has a place in the industry at a time like this. Also, I love the tip about explaining your employment gap on your resume. I am always one who has to hold myself back from writing a novel instead of a resume, so if I had a significant employment gap, I would definitely explain it. With this explanation comes the possible need for more space. I know this article advocates for a two page resume, which I do not see as harmful either, but I would love to read more on that to get other opinions.
Like most of these kinds of practical articles, this particuar one doesn't say a lot that's new, but it's a useful reminder and self check. It can be hard to keep going and to think about what happens next after the pandemic is over, but it is essential. One interesting thing that it did say is that two page resumes might actually yeild better results than one page resumes. I'd be interested to see how that plays out when accounting for other variables: do two pages only work when your resume is already impressive? Do two page resumes yied simiarly effective results in theater and entertainment? I don't know. I would be very hesitant to let my resume be two pages at this point in my career, but it's an interesting tidbit to hold on to for later, when I have more years and experiences under my belt. It could be worth looking into.
Finding work during the epidemic is challenging and this article certainly laid out some suggestions of ways you can at least make yourself more marketable. I had no idea that Linkedin is seen as such an important tool for marketing oneself. I’m curious how many of those suggestions hold true to the entertainment industry because of its total reliance on people congregating. The pandemic has certainly made me think about my future and I realized that I’m in a very lucky time for this to happen. If I was a working professional in the theater industry, I might not be getting paid right now. Having a cash reserve is a great idea for people like us. I also think that this is an excellent reason to hold onto my EMT certification, because no matter what the emergency is, medical providers will always be needed and there is constantly a need for personnel in that field.
I think the tips listed in the article are good practices no matter what the situation, but they are certainly useful to keep in mind. I will say when I read this article title, my knee-jerk reaction was a small flare of anger. The fact that we cannot get a single break from work even in a global pandemic is indicative of the unhealthy work culture of corporate America. I have no problem with working for a living, but during a time in which not all work is possible and people's lives are on the line, all most people have to look forward to is how to get a job back and keep on grinding, in sickness or in health. Maybe this is just me and my heated thinking at the moment, but I am really tired of work and work and work being the forefront of American life.
Don't even get me started on summer internships. I am scared beyond comparison and I do not know what to do at this point. I didn’t work last year because I wanted to travel and have fun with my friends after an entire year of being in a deep depression that way freshman year of a design and production sydney. So now, knowing that a lot of internships are being cancelled because of corona, I’m getting really nervous that my resume wont be kept up and as impressive as I would like it to be. Other than that, i;ve had some exciting plans on the way for the summer and the fact that those plans won't work out most likely is really depressing, especially given all the effort I have put into working hard to make those happen. I know there are a lot of more important things that are happening in the world right now, but employment is definitely one of the biggest concerns for many people.
This article really caught my eye because of all of the layoffs that people in the live event industry are suffering during these uncertain times. However, after I read the article, the four tips that they offer really seem to be overly generalized and applicable in job hunting no matter the global economic situation. Professional networking online is something that most social media hoped would occur when it was released. Facebook, originally only for college students, had a huge hand in establishing the president for meaningful connections virtually. Secondly, cover letters are my least favorite part of hiring processes. I never feel like I really know what to say in them and I am not convinced that they are read to the level of detail that I try and put in them. Finally, the debate surrounding the length of a resume seems to never end. Personally, I will always try to keep my resume on one page, but that is because that is how I have always been taught.
Jobs are on many people's minds right now. Currently, I’m still waiting for the summer stock I was planning to work at to be canceled. It seems like it’s just a matter of time. My parents, not happy about the idea of me not doing anything productive all summer are trying to be proactive and encourage applying to positions for the summer at grocery stores and other open businesses. I found this article less helpful in the grand scheme of things. Some tips are clearly applicable even not in a pandemic, like personalizing the cover letter to the job you're applying to. The tips around addressing work gaps are less relevant to my age group who have not (to the best of my knowledge) taken a couple years to raise a family. That being said it might be interesting to mention something like a gap year you spend volunteering in community theatre or some other related field, but in our case, I would assume that would already have a place on a resume.
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