You may be one of those who have experienced a setback at work due to COVID-19 and we know you need resources. At Lingo Africa, the foremost human capital development platform in Abuja, we understand and we sympathize with you. Frank told us last week how he got an email from his office Human Resources Department.

“The email arrived in my inbox during the ongoing lockdown and when I saw that it was from HR, I was reluctant to open it but, I just had to. They wrote that the company is currently undergoing a lot of changes due to COVID-19 and the ongoing lockdown is doing more harm than good, so, all employees will be paid half salaries until things go back to normal,” Frank said.

This is the scenario right now for so many employees across various sectors. Worse still, some others have been fired from their jobs and are now looking for work opportunities. Times are very hard right now for a lot of professionals. This post will help whoever needs help in navigating ways to get another job even as COVID-19 status is still active in many countries around the world.

According to Kayode Abass on LinkedIn, a few sectors are still hiring because they do essential work even in the midst of COVID-19. These sectors are Healthcare, Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), IT, Logistics and Retail, e-Commerce and Tech startups, Educational Services, Marketing.

So, if you are looking for a job right now, you should focus on offering some of your professional value to companies in any of the aforementioned sectors. You can either look out for vacancies within these sectors, or you need to identify the owners of companies in any of the sectors and approach them through LinkedIn or a shared contact and tell them the value you can offer their company at this time, so, you can get hired.

If you need help applying the traditional way, here are a few tips to help your search;

Experience – How many years of relevant experience do you have? Do you have recommendations from high flyers in your chosen industry? Can you prove to a company director that your professional experience is something that his/her company will benefit from?

Employers focus so much on experience because it makes their work easier. Right now, companies are trying to stay afloat and if you have enough work experience to carry out duties for them, they will move mountains to hire you.

Keywords – If you are applying to available jobs over the internet, you need to identify the role or roles for which you want to get hired, then, you must use LinkedIn and other online tools to do a keyword search, this will help you identify the keywords that will attract headhunters to your resume.

We all know that HR people go through hundreds of resumes, so, in order to make yours stand out, you need to use keywords. What are those words that are common for the role you want?

Let’s say you need work as a Remote Marketer for an FMCG company, you need to have keywords like – marketer, marketing executive, sales, copywriting, sales management, performance management, etc, on your resume and on your LinkedIn profile to increase your chances of visibility.

This is very important if not, the chances of your visibility especially online is very slim. Keywords on your resume also help you defeat the Applicant Tracking System (ATS), which is designed to screen out job candidates who do not focus on keywords.

Your Cover Letter – A lot of times, some people avoid writing cover letters or some just repeat the same information found on their resume (Yawn!) Writing a cover letter is one of the best ways to get the attention of the person who is reading through your application.

You need to use this opportunity to tell a story about your career journey, in relation to that role! This trick works most of the time because it humanizes you, it helps the HR person to understand you better, which is the purpose of a cover letter. Focus on why you want the job or how you solved a problem using your relevant skills.

Take Advantage of LinkedIn – LinkedIn is still one of the best ways to land jobs, especially from other countries. You should not just create a profile and leave it at that, you need to get involved, engage with other professionals.

Complete your profile to 100 percent, comment on other people’s posts, give advice based on your work experience, if anyone is celebrating a new promotion, or job, wish them well, also make your own posts, even if you do not get any engagement at first, continue posting. Allow the LinkedIn algorithm to find you and more people will find you too.

More relevant links found at the source - https://lingoafrica.com/you-need-these-job-search-tips-if-you-are-looking-for-opportunities/

Lingo Africa.

Good afternoon

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