In 2020, everything changed in the employment market.
Even well-established and financially sound businesses have had to lay off valued members of staff, or put them on short time working. With mercifully few exceptions, companies will have done their best to find alternative jobs within their businesses for those who have nothing to do during a lock-down, or whose work has been adversely affected by Covid-19 regulations. They are not always successful, but they may well have promised people who have been laid off that they will be at the front of the queue when the situation improves, and there are, once again, job vacancies.
None of this is of much help to people who are just starting their working lives.
Some, particularly school leavers, will have planned to take a job at a fairly low level on the career ladder, hoping that hard work and increasing experience will open opportunities as time passes and their skills improve. This is by no means a bad plan; many talented young people have not found school life interesting or challenging, and their qualifications may not reflect their abilities, let alone their ambitions.
“One day I’m going to have my own restaurant.”
The hospitality industry has been hit harder than any other by Covid, and there are hardly any job vacancies. An ambition to become a top chef may have to be put on hold, at least for the immediate future. It need not be abandoned, but for the interim the young man or woman with dreams of creative work in a busy commercial kitchen should look for work which will hone other skills that may be needed when those job opportunities are once more back on the table.
This is a time when expert advice on finding a job is vitally important. A good recruitment agency will not only be watching the jobs market almost minute by minute, but will be able to tailor a CV so that it shows the applicant in the best possible light, and will ensure that the language of the CV matches, as closely as possible, that of the advertised job description. A good recruitment company will also guide its clients towards jobs that will not only suit their skills, but will also build and encourage their talents so that the time spent waiting for their first choice of career to open for them has not been wasted.
The health and social care sectors are actively recruiting today, and need hard-working young people with the social skills they need to handle old people or care home residents who may be in poor health and unable to manage for themselves. Careers can be rewarding, and, as skills are learned and put into practice, well paid.
The engineering sector is beginning to recruit again, but will probably expect some qualifications. Research, particularly medical research, is another field where companies are seeking young people with ambition and talent, and if they are looking for laboratory technicians they may see reliability and enthusiasm as a more important factor than exam grades.
The Dangan Group’s recruitment department has contacts in a wide range of sectors, as well as years of experience in finding the right person for the right job. Today, people looking for work need experts on their side; with Dangan, that is what they will have.
