Articles

Strategies to Beat the Competition in a Market Downturn

Identify your ideal career!

Success in business in a boom period is oh, so easy with a nice fat marketing budget and customers with mega money to spend.  In an economic meltdown the first unpleasant reality is that expenditure is cut to the bone and managers are expected to produce spectacular results against every penny invested.

Recruitment is often the first casualty when it comes to cutting budgets and choices are carefully made to avoid expensive mistakes.  HR managers are more discerning now than ever before so it is important to be armed with the right credentials and have a persuasive case for being the right person for the job.

Taking Advantage of Opportunities

Finding work in a recession is challenging but by no means impossible if you utilise free online facilities that provide a wealth of information and abundant opportunities to make contact with prospective employers.  And often one contact opens doors to another enabling you to target your career group effectively.  LinkedIn is a particularly valuable resource that specialises in mutually beneficial introductions for employers and job hunters.

Taking steps to be involved in the most effective online sites is just part of the journey on the road to success.  It is equally important to ensure your skill set is up to date and if not exclusive at least competitive in a job market where employers cannot afford to make costly errors.  Every position made available carries a formidable wish list for skills and personal attributes: a CV that proclaims not only basic credentials but also a second complementary degree and testifies to leadership skills; social accomplishments; and an ability to generate profit will land on the top of the short list for interview.

Staying Ahead

In a market downturn it is inevitable that employers will want ‘more bang for their buck’.  The days when a team of executives could be assigned for each project are long gone; now one or two must carry enough expertise to achieve the same outstanding results.  If you want to stay ahead of the competition you need to have those multi skills that are increasingly sought after by major market leaders. 

Every successful company that survived every major recession in the last hundred years took an optimistic view and went all out to take the lion’s share of whatever revenue was up for grabs by increasing advertising, aggressively expanding the marketing budget and putting the company’s best foot forward but that is not to say that businesses will spend money like water in a financial crisis.  Economic policies and waste avoidance has become synonymous with survival in a recession so it is obvious that companies will make every effort to recruit where they know they will get a great performance for their money.

Upgrading Your Qualifications

Take a critical overview of your professional image and consider making changes that will put your profile at the top of the shortlist.  Highly skilled executives now achieve a second or even third supporting degree in order to change their career path.  For example candidates with scientific degrees combined with a business or language degree are considerably more attractive to overseas pharmaceutical and research companies. 

And it is not always a huge career upheaval to retrain or upgrade your qualifications – many achieve an additional degree while still working.

Analyse your target market accurately; advertise your skills and personal qualities intelligently; re-train where necessary and take advantage of the online networking opportunities provided by LinkedIn in order to beat the competition in a market downturn.

If you would like help in changing jobs and finding the perfect career,

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