How to Start Your Career After a Global Crisis

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the competition for entry-level jobs was already intense. In the struggle to get a career head-start, many recent university graduates found that their education alone was insufficient to make them stand out from their peers. With websites like LinkedIn and Glassdoor facilitating job applications with a few clicks (even automatically attaching your resume in the process), employers found themselves dealing with more applicants than ever before.

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Even when graduates equipped themselves with relevant internship experience and extra-curricular achievements, many still found their inboxes cluttered with all-too-familiar rejection emails: vague in content, thanking them for their time and wishing them the best in their job search. Still others found themselves ghosted by these companies, without even the courtesy of a formal rejection. It was a scenario that many final-year students could expect and were bracing themselves for. Now the Class of 2020 faces a much more difficult job market, where uncertainty is now the only certainty.

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However, though the challenges ahead will be real and painful, they can ultimately be conquered. Your generation’s not alone – it can identify with those who had started their careers during tough times like the 2007-2008 global financial crisis. Regardless of whether you’re a fresh graduate or someone switching into a new career track, if you hold on to hope and resilience, you’ll definitely find the right opportunities. Indeed, many who persevered through the last financial crisis eventually built fruitful careers with the lessons learnt from their rough starts.

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“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister

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Square One

Not every career path looks like a straight line upwards, and that’s perfectly fine. You may not be able to avoid a rocky start to your career, but the initial struggles can help build character and skills needed to tackle future challenges.

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It’s an experience I’m personally familiar with – I graduated from an Australian university and returned to a job market impacted by the global economic aftershocks of the September 11th attacks. Retrenching exercises were commonplace then. As a fresh graduate in IT trying to kick-start my new career after five years in the army, I found myself competing with both local and overseas graduates, as well as those who were retrenched and looking to get back on track. There was also a bit of an age disadvantage, since I was not as young as most other graduates and my previous military experience had nothing to do with IT.

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My salary as an army officer was quite good, and that contributed to the higher expectations I had for myself in looking for an entry-level IT position. As time passed and the bitter experiences of reality hit home, those expectations fell. Eventually, I applied for roles that I initially felt were unsuitable for me or were in completely unrelated industries. When I received no response after applying for IT jobs, I found myself applying for sales roles in SMEs and even hospitality roles with hotels. These days, it’s very common to hear others recommend that you “just apply for everything”, and there’s truth in it – while it may be a choice in a normal job market, it will be a necessity in a COVID-19 job market.

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Over a depressing period of six to nine months, I had 20-30 interviews (and many more pre-interview rejections) before I was recommended a contract staff role by my friend. The job involved handling computer operating system migrations for a company, six days a week on the midnight shift.

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Having studied data computing in university, I did not have any experience on the role’s hardware-centric aspects, like removing computer casings and extracting the RAM (random access memory) units within. Nevertheless, I made it a point to ask my experienced friends for advice on the steps and wrote them down to familiarise myself with the operations. With more experience leading people than engaging them as customers, I had to adopt a service-minded attitude for the front-end aspects of the job. In order to train my customer service skills, I even practiced by rehearsing and recording my interactions.

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The circumstances of 2020 may be very different from 2001’s, but I believe that some experiences will still be relevant and relatable even into the future. While I expected a more glamorous full-time first job in IT, I had to make do with a contract role and dedicate myself to excelling at it. In doing so, I internalised the importance of learning new skills, keeping up to date with them and giving my best no matter how dull or difficult the task may be.

I also learnt to not be afraid or embarrassed when asking questions to cover any gaps in my knowledge – indeed, asking questions is a fundamental skill that I urge everyone to master, since curiosity helps increase our understanding and safeguards us from making mistakes due to insufficient information. As the old saying goes, ‘pride comes before a fall’. If pride is stopping you from reaching out and clarifying what you don’t know, put it away for your own good. Of course, while it’s good to ask questions, it’s not good to annoy others by repeating the same questions all the time. That’s where good memory or note-taking comes in.

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My ability to tackle challenges and setbacks developed from those early days; since my journey into the IT industry was a rocky one, I learnt how to cope with less-than-perfect situations at work and make the best of every opportunity.

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Positive Thinking and Big-Picture Perspectives

In the beginning, and when I was at some of the lowest points of my career, ‘glass half-full’ thinking kept me going forward when I felt like giving up. A glass filled to the halfway point with water can be perceived as half-empty or half-full; whether we choose to focus on the positives or negatives in each situation can be as simple as adjusting our perspectives.

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Whenever I found myself in a difficult situation, instead of obsessing over what I lacked, I thought about my journey and the challenges I overcame to reach that point in my career. With that, I managed to unearth the confidence I buried and used it to push myself forward. After all, what’s another battle when you’re a veteran of many past victories? Regardless of the prospects of victory or defeat, a veteran is confident in his ability to perform.

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Living in the present, the challenges directly ahead can seem impossible. However, when you look at the circumstances from an overall, long-term perspective, they won’t seem so hopeless – you still have more than 40 years to go before truly reaching the end of your career path. Eventually, you’ll be viewing this as a rough but ultimately manageable period in the grand scheme of things. Thinking in reverse has also helped me make significant career decisions. With the end-goal in mind, plan on how you can make your way there – using this method, you may discover that a lateral career move is unexpectedly the best decision for you.

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Starting from behind can also be a powerful motivator for achieving career milestones. Putting 110% effort to make up for lost time can doubly work to your advantage when you maintain that momentum to overtake your peers from previous years after catching up with them. Even when factors beyond your control slow down your career progression at any stage (including the start), it’s okay to feel upset. The key is to not let the demoralisation stick, but rather to make the most of your situation.

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For example, if you’re currently awaiting responses from companies, you might want to take a bit of time out of your day to hone your soft skills for potential interviews. When you have fewer opportunities, you need to make every shot count – mastering the interview setting can help seal the deal, when nothing else separates you from your competition.

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If you find yourself stuck with a disappointing first job (low pay, boring job scope, not your target industry etc.), don’t just settle for it – even as you continue to work there, your expectations for what you don’t want in your next role have been revealed to you. With this clarity, you’ll be able to plan and determine next steps in your career path.

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Where no opportunities for your desired industry exists, if you’re fortunate enough to begin your career at an industry related to that, you can pick up transferable skills and knowledge that you can use to possibly leverage yourself back into your dream job when the economy improves. In life, not all paths are straight or smooth – there are many twists and turns to navigate, but also key points in which we can change our trajectory.

The job market operates on harsh truths, and employers are pragmatic – the issue of salary also factors into their expectations of job applicants. Throw in a global crisis, and well-paying entry-level jobs may be almost impossible to get, with applicants flocking to the few openings left untouched by industry-wide hiring freezes.

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But while you can’t control the reality of the job-seeking situation, you can manage your expectations regarding the start of your career. Is a great salary a non-negotiable factor for you, or are you capable of adjusting to a lower salary in exchange for more learning opportunities downstream? Those learning opportunities may be the key to securing a better position once the job market improves. On the other hand, being too choosy may create more problems, especially with the gloomy economic shadow cast by the COVID-19 pandemic over the job market.

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While furthering your education may seem like a good way to weather the storm, many other fresh graduates will be thinking the same way. What if the job market prefers work experience over masters’ degrees or PhDs? Further education also means more sunken costs, and overqualification is a real issue facing some graduates. If the harsh COVID-19 job market continues to persist, then those who are overqualified may find themselves further disadvantaged than fresh graduates or those with prior work experience.

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A healthy appetite for risk-taking can also serve you well both now and in the future. Sometimes the greatest leaps and shortcuts in our career journey can be credited to taking risks. In a world of disruption and change, job stability is becoming increasingly rare. Global crises add even more uncertainty on top of that. When all the signs point to new and unstable job markets becoming the norm, perhaps it’s a good idea to familiarise oneself with risk-taking.

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In the future, after public health and the economy have stabilised globally, a clear understanding of taking risks can help you explore emerging opportunities, either in overseas markets or in new industries. This insight is also drawn from personal experience – after seven years working with Fujitsu Singapore, I requested a transfer to one of our overseas branches. The business there had some issues, and I volunteered to go there in order to try resolving them. Even when my family and close friends discouraged me from leaving a nice and stable position in Singapore, I understood that proving myself in a difficult situation would lead to more opportunities in the future.

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Their biggest concerns were proven right, and I was kept busy troubleshooting and tackling challenges overseas. While the next five years were the most stressful period of my professional career, I managed to excel and help turn the situation around. My risk-taking and efforts did not go unnoticed by my regional CEO, who offered me the opportunity to head Fujitsu’s smart factory manufacturing initiatives. Neither the organisation nor I had any prior knowledge on this topic. Nonetheless, having just put myself through one major challenge in unfamiliar territory, I was confident in my ability to succeed at the next one, while learning and developing from zero.

Mentally Distancing and Recharging

You may be trying your very best to secure a job opportunity, only to find more rejection emails the next day. You may have lowered your expectations, sending dozens of applications out in hopes of simply getting to the interview stage. You may even be contemplating your past decisions to embark on your current field of study. Having experienced all these myself, I definitely empathise with your situation. Beyond sharing the advice above and hoping that you’ll not lose hope, I recommend taking occasional breaks from the search.

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Taking a break is more than just getting off LinkedIn, Glassdoor and Indeed. It’s about not seeking negative news that can put us down, whether it’s the latest government data about unemployment rates or friends’ success stories on social media. Turn off the computer, put down the newspaper and just relax. When you’re mentally distanced from the constant source of stress that eats away at your motivation and well-being, you can begin to recharge. The challenge ahead will feel more manageable when you have a clear mind and stable emotions – these become even more essential with COVID-19 affecting everything and everyone worldwide.

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Even in the early stages of your career, when you’re putting in extra effort to make up for lost time, don’t forget to take breaks to avoid burnout. Sometimes, when you’re facing a seemingly unsolvable problem, the inspiration and solution can come about by disengaging from it. We may be unable to see these problems from a different perspective if we’re locked into tunnel vision from a single point of view.

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Global crises like this one tend to make us feel lost and hopeless, since everything is out of our control and predominantly negative in nature. It’s okay to feel discouraged about your situation now, as well as your future prospects. However, it would make more sense to separate the two. The only things we can control right now are our thoughts, decisions and actions. Even as we worry about the present, we can also plan and strategise for the future.

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Your career path is not a race or a sprint – just like life, it is a one-man marathon, and your overall results matter a lot more than your performance on a single part of the track. As you persevere through today, keep tomorrow’s potentials in mind.

1. Make Questioning a Habit

When you put aside your pride and ask many questions, you fill out the gaps in your understanding and become an eager learner. It’s unwise to willingly give up any opportunities to learn, particularly when everyone’s looking for that extra edge in a tough economy.

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2. Use Different Perspectives

Whether it’s the glass half-full or strategising for the long marathon, a shift in perspective can help you gain clarity on your current situation and hint at the best direction forward.

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3. Take Breaks

Reality is harsh, and the struggle may continue for a longer period of time. Treat yourself well when the world isn’t treating you well, and take breaks to mentally recharge. That way, you’ll be better equipped to continue the fight.