Today’s job market has been described as one of the worst job markets in modern day history. As a job seeker it’s essential to understand how to navigate each of the four stages of reopening in your province.
Phases of Reopening
BC announced the BC’s Restart Plan to reopen the province in four phases. BC has been a beacon of hope in its COVID-19 response. With the lowest mortality rate of any jurisdiction with more than 5 million people in Canada, the United States and Western Europe. BC’s overly cautious and protective measures made an enormous difference in our ability to flatten the curve.
As provinces reopen, we are encouraged to continue the measures:
- Stay at home and keep a safe distance if you have cold or flu symptoms like coughing, sneezing, runny nose, sore throat and fatigue.
- No handshaking or hugs outside of your family.
- Practice good hygiene:
- Regular hand washing;
- Avoid touching your face;
- Covering coughs and sneezes; and
- Disinfect frequently touched surfaces.
- Maintain physical distancing in the community and use a non-medical mask or face-covering.
- In personal settings, when seeing friends and family, you don’t live with:
- Gather in small groups of 2 to 6 people and keep at least 2 meters physical distance; and
- Stay at home and away from people with cold or flu symptoms.
Most provinces will be following four or five phases of reopening. Here are some ways to adjust your job search strategy through each stage.
Phase 1-Extended reflection, learning and improving
Thankfully, we came out of Phase 0, which were stay-at-home orders and lockdown for all except for essential services. At the moment many of the provinces are coming out of Phase 1 which focused on:
- Expanding the list of crucial businesses that are well-equipped to open;
- Opening non-essential professional services;
- Restarting outdoor, recreational and seasonal activities and;
- Reopening care, community and household services.
As discussed in our post on Job searching during the pandemic, during Phase 0 and Phase 1, your time was best spent on reflecting, learning and improving. After taking the time to reflect and reset your career goals, you would have a better idea of the skills and knowledge you want to sharpen to strengthen your job profile. If you have been putting off updating your resume and LinkedIn profile, this is an excellent time to get it done. At this point, aim to have:
- Three to four updated versions of your resume,
- An updated LinkedIn profile; and
- Completed a few courses that you want to share with your connections.
PHASE 2- Reconnect and restart virtual meetings
Phase 2 ranges from province to province. Take a quick look at the summary of which phase each province in Canada is currently in the reopening. The majority are in Phase 2.
Canadian Provinces by Phases
Phase 1 began on May 19th. Businesses have to prove they are following the provincial guidelines to reopen. Full-time classes for schools will resume in September. Restaurants, personal services businesses have been allowed to return, and are allowed to operate at 50% capacity. BC strongly discourages outdoor gatherings of more than 50 people and asks people to limit small meetings of up to 10 people.
The province is in Level 4 in its level reopening plan as they took a different approach in counting downward instead of upward. Small gatherings with a limit of 10 people are allowed, while parties and other social gatherings are currently banned.
The Government announced a five-phase plan to reopen the economy on Monday, May 11th. The province is currently in Phase 3, where restaurants, gyms and nail salons can operate at half capacity. Indoor gatherings are limited to 15 and outdoor to 30 people.
Phase 3 is scheduled to begin June 19th, where the stage, movie theatres, spas and personal care services will reopen. Outdoor gatherings are limited to 50 people and indoor meetings to 15.
As of May 29th, the gathering limit doubled to 10 people. Most recreational businesses are also limited to the 10-person limit. Businesses who reopened June 5th must follow strict physical distancing.
Currently, outdoor gatherings of up to 50 people, indoor religious services of up to 50 people and low-contact team sports and other facilities are allowed. From June 9th, people are required to wear face coverings in any building open to the general public except for children or people who cannot wear face coverings for medical reasons.
Gatherings of up to 15 people are allowed indoors and 20 people outdoors. Restaurants, recreational, sporting activities, day camps, wellness centres, art galleries and libraries have now reopened. Businesses need to ensure physical distancing and screening, cleaning and hand washing procedures are in place
Quebec is on the cusp of entering into Phase 2. Gatherings of up to 10 people from three families are allowed. A large number of personal care businesses will be opening in the Montreal area from June 15th. Many outdoor recreational activities have resumed, provided people keep a safe distance.
The province is still in Phase 1 and is slowly increasing the number of businesses that can open. Ontario is currently considering moving into Phase 2 of reopening. This would allow a more significant number of office-based businesses to reopen and expand the maximum amount of social gathering from 5.
At the moment, healthcare businesses, retail businesses, museums and libraries are allowed to reopen at 50 percent capacity. Since May 22nd, groups of up to 25 people are allowed indoors, and 50 people permitted outdoors. Elementary and high schools will not reopen this school year.
NWT is on track to enter into Phase 2 of its reopening plan starting this week. Restaurants, fitness centres and movie theatres will be allowed to open. Outdoor gatherings of up to 50 people and indoor day programs of up to 25 people are accepted with 2 meters distancing.
The territory announced a five-phase reopening plan. At the moment, two households of up to 10 people can interact as part of a household bubble. It has been gradually easing restrictions since May 15th by opening dine-in restaurants, day cares and recreational centers. It will be lifting travel restrictions between Yukon and BC after July 1st as it enters the second phase.
Even though there are no confirmed cases in Nunavut, it has maintained strict travel restrictions and closed non-essential businesses. It is in the process of lifting its travel restrictions between Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. The public health emergency was extended until June 11th, and it announced that retail locations, gyms, pools and non-essential health services will be allowed to open later in the month.
- Recruiters and Hiring Managers
The job market is more competitive than it has ever been, and candidates have to be both proactive and considerate as they reach out to recruiters and hiring managers.
- Professional Connections
Before you contact your existing professional network, make sure you have been following and keeping up on their progress. Some of your professional connections may have kept their LinkedIn profiles up-to-date, and others may not. Reach out from a place of compassion and genuine respect. This pandemic has been hard on everyone, and people are dealing with varying degrees of loss.
- Mentors
Bear in mind that people that you consider your mentors may be mentors to other people. In these uncertain times, mentors may find themselves overwhelmed. However, the nature of mentors is always to make time for the people they mentor. Again, reaching out to your mentor from a place of compassion sounds like:
“Hello, I wanted to check in with you as I have noticed you have not been as active online as I remember. How are work and the family? Have you gotten a chance to take some time off?”
OR
“Hello, things have changed so much since we last connected, and I wanted to check in with you. Please let me know how things are going and if you will be available for a brief 15-minute virtual connect”.
- New Professional Connections
I would hold off on reaching out to strangers in Phase 2 and would recommend that for Phase 3 or 4. Due to the high unemployment rate in Canada at 13.7% many people are on edge. Companies have laid off staff, cut back on promotions and salary increases and several other company perks. Those who are still working are either overworked or underpaid and, at times, both. It’s essential to grow your connections even in these times. However, apply the pull versus push methodology. To stand out and have new people reach out to you, it’s time for you to increase your LinkedIn activity. Share a blog post, a personal video outlining your skills and talents and share your thoughts through posting. Getting people to like and comment on your content will pull in new contacts.
- Career Coaches/Consultants
In these uncertain times, career coaches and consultants are more likely to offer reduced rates and other perks. At StartGrowPivot, we have a free career goals discovery session and are offering discounts for newcomers and students. Search out career coaches and consultants to see what their current offerings are.
Phase 3- Increase informational interviews and job applications
Once you have spent most of Phase 2, reconnecting and have had virtual meetings with a few people, you are ready to take your learnings to the next level. At this point, the job market should start to rebound. We saw positive results in May with 290,000 jobs, and experts are optimistic to see this trend continue well into June and as the economy starts to reopen.
In Phase 3, companies are starting to see the positive results of increasing capacity and adhering to strict safety guidelines. We will only move into the next reopening phase if the decreasing trend of infections and deaths continue. So be sure to keep an eye out on the COVID-19 tracker for your province or Canada.
Keeping an eye on the consumer and business sentiment will be crucial as we enter into Phase 3. An excellent resource for business sentiment is the Conference Board of Canada and for consumer sentiment McKinsey reports and the Bloomberg Nanos Canadian Confidence Index.
Given that we see a small lift in sentiment from most Canadians, people will be more open to hiring and setting up informational interviews. Informational interviews are the best way to sharpen your interviewing skills. You are more likely to get honest feedback from the person in an informational interview, as there are no commitments. The quality of job boards should have improved by now as companies have updated their hiring needs. Remember that companies will give preference to bringing back employees they may have temporarily laid off. If you have done your homework in Phase 2 and connected with the right people, you will have the opportunity to learn more about the full picture of your target company’s job opportunities.
Phase 4- Prepare for in-person meetings and virtual job interviews
Coffee shops, crowded bars and restaurants were the go-to ways for professionals to meet up. It’s time to recommend meeting outdoors, only when necessary. This is a time to get creative in recommending meeting places, make sure the person you are asking to meet with is 100% comfortable and on board with the meetup. No matter how fun and convenient virtual meetups are, they cannot replace making an in-person connection with someone—Reserve in-person meetings for close friends, family and close professional relationships.
Phase 4 should see most businesses near back to normal, and at the same time, people will be bracing themselves for a possible second wave. At this phase, your reflection and learning in Phase 1 and 2, reconnecting and job applications in Phase 3 should lead to you receiving invitations for virtual interviews.
Seven tips to acing the virtual interview:
- Set up and test your tech settings such as your microphone, camera and background.
- Prepare the scene and remove all distractions as much as possible.
- Practice and be prepared with your resume and job description on the screen. Avoid printing the job description or resume because you will appear to be looking down on the camera.
- Fully dress the part from head to toe, No Shortcuts.
- Make a connection early in the interview and guide a conversation as much as you can.
- Be aware of your body language, posture and hold eye contact as much as possible.
- Be yourself and project confidence in your ability to deliver on their most crucial tasks.
More to come in a future blog post on how to become a job interview assassin. We also have interview prep sessions with our StartGrowPivot career experts.
Phase 5- Learning and living in the new normal
No one is quite sure what the new normal entails. Many provinces have stated the new standard will be when we have developed a vaccine or community immunity. Most large scale events have been banned until a vaccine is in general use.
There is also the expectation that a second wave will be worse than the first wave of COVID infections. If that happens, many provinces will revert to a more restrictive phase, or we could go back to square one at Phase 0.
In case we revert to a more restrictive phase, follow the recommendations for that given phase. Scale back on requesting meetings with people and your job applications until you have confirmed the company’s hiring situation.
Here are some tips CTVNews.ca gathered from a few experts on living in the new normal:
- Stay aware of the status of COVID-19 cases in your region
- Limit moving around and non-essential travel
- Increase the time you spend outdoors
- Limit time spent with strangers
- Communicate about physical distancing
- Wear a mask
- Engage in new rules for social interaction
- Show kindness to others
There you have it—the areas you need to focus on as you navigate through the phases of reopening the economy. As you know, things have been rapidly changing, and there are still so many unknowns. Keeping yourself informed and up to date on the latest job market trends and credible health care information is necessary.