I have talked with hundreds of people over the last few weeks regarding career advice, and many of them ask the same question – “how do I find organizations that are hiring?” Many people find themselves overwhelmed as they try to develop a “target list” of organizations they may want to work for. In some cases, this feeling of being overwhelmed causes people to become paralyzed in their search which inhibits their ability to develop the list and then act up on it. This blog will provide a few tips for how to identify organizations that may be hiring during this time. Hopefully this information can help you jumpstart your search and allow to you find organizations that can leverage your skill sets, experiences, and interests.
Before I go into specifics, there are a lot of organizations and sectors hiring right now including Supply Chain / Logistics, Fashion – especially for PPE, Healthcare
/ Life Sciences, Biofood – such as “lab based meat companies”, Public Health, and Manufacturing. Many of these organizations in the different sectors are hiring in various functional areas including Supply Chain, Procurement, Finance, Operations, IT, Marketing, Communications, Customer Service, Research, etc. This creates opportunities for people to transfer their experiences and skills from other sectors into these.
The first tip I give to people is to use vetted sources of information to help you compile a target list for your career search. I know this sounds like a simple idea, but
many people are not sure what this means. Here are a few specific examples to put this into practice:
1. You could start with a Google search for a phrase such as “ Organizations hiring amid COVID”. This will result in a few sources of information such as the following articles:
This article in Fast Company – “These 10 companies are hiring the most workers right now—coronavirus be damned”. https://www.fastcompany.com/90484006/these-10-companies-are-hiring-the-most-workers-right-now-coronavirus-be-damned
This article on Glassdoor: 33 Companies Eager to Hire Amid COVID-19. https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/companies-eager-to-hire-now/
This article on ABC news. They're hiring! Companies seek thousands of new employees amid the coronavirus pandemic. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/hiring-companies-seek-thousands-employees-amid-coronavirus-pandemic/story?id=69767851
2. You could get more specific and search for “Fashion companies developing PPE for Coronavirus” and you might come across this article:
ALL THE COMPANIES MANUFACTURING PRODUCTS TO HELP PREVENT AND COPE WITH THE SPREAD OF COVID-19. https://fashionista.com/2020/03/fashion-beauty-companies-coronavirus-covid19-manufacturing-products-help
Or this article which specifically lists organizations in a state, AZ. Other states may have specific lists like this. If you happen to live in AZ, then you could potentially add this to your target list. These Arizona companies are pivoting or ramping up PPE production to fight coronavirus.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-health/2020/03/26/arizona-fashion-incubator-fabric-working-make-personal-protective-equipment/5083163002/
3. You can also search by other specific terms such as: “life sciences companies performing COVID research” and a few links come up:
These Mass. companies are developing COVID-19 treatments and tests. https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2020/04/16/these-mass-companies-are-developing-covid-19.html
Life Sciences Companies Commit Expertise and Assets to the Fight Against COVID-19 Pandemic Alongside Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Media-Center/Press-Releases/2020/03/Life-Science-Companies-Commit-to-the-Fight-Against-COVID-19-Pandemic-alongside-Gates-Foundation
4. You could use publicly available databases. For example, if you are in interested to work in the healthcare / Life Sciences area, you could search the Clinical Trials database - https://clinicaltrials.gov/ which is a database of privately and publicly funded clinical studies conducted around the world. You can search by “Coronavirus” trials and then review the list of trials to identify academic organizations, medical centers, and companies currently conducting trials. Perhaps a few of these organizations are hiring due to their new coronavirus activities.
As you compile your “target list” by using sources like these above, you can then check the organization’s websites to see if any roles are posted. Sometimes organizations just post roles to their website, so once you know about the organizations then you suddenly know about their roles. You could also search sites such as LinkedIn and Indeed by the organizations name to see if jobs are posted. You can also ask your network if they know anyone at the organizations of interest to see if they can help make introductions for you to learn more about opportunities.
I hope you find these tips helpful to jumpstart your search.
About this blog series:
This is a very uncertain time and many people are anxious, especially people who find themselves in an active job search. Many people feel helpless and are unsure of what to do during this time especially when it comes to making their job search productive. Every year, I provide advice to thousands of people, directly through my career coaching activities and also through the recruiting activities I am involved in. I am privileged to have a unique perspective into both the “job seeker” and the “organization looking to hire”.
This blog is part of a series of blogs that I am writing to provide advice to help people prepare for and conduct a job search. A link to other blogs in this series is here:
I recently wrote a blog on the importance of Self Reflection, see link,
I recently wrote a blog on how to develop/enhance the About section of your Linkedin Profile, see link, \
To see other blogs written by Propel Careers, see link:
Feel free to reach out to me at Lauren@propelcareers.com with topics that interest you and I can try to incorporate them into future blogs.