Top 8 Tips to Recession-Proof Your Career

Welcome to roadmap to the executive suite podcast, a place where we talk about accelerating your careers all tailored to the ambitious woman. We're here to have fun, feel empowered and get actionable steps to get you closer to your dream job and salary, no matter where you are in your career. I'm your host, Claudia Miller,

Athena, career coach and corporate trainer who helps ambitious women get the jobs they want, almost getting them up to $100,000 in salary increases. I've been featured in Forbes MSNBC, and Business Insider put me there Top Global list of top innovative career coaches, and the creative 90 day job offer program where I teach career driven women like you my proprietary strategy on how to land a job you love in less than 90 days, all while getting 30 to$100,000 in salary increases, no matter if you're just starting in your career, or you're ready to pivot into the executive suite. My clients have been able to move to the next step in their careers successfully pivoted into new industries without having to take a pay cut and broke it into management without any prior experience. I'm coming to you with a new episode every week on Thursdays with mindset job search, interview skills and sound negotiation advice with actionable strategies you can implement today to help you get ahead in your career. Now let's get started with this week's episode. Hi, I'm excited for today for this session. So today I'm going to be talking about how to protect your career during an economic uncertainty. So now we hear a lot of talk about recession coming up soon. It isn't already here. There's a lot of companies that may be sending back their job offers there have been some hiring freezes, there have been some layoffs happening. So you're probably wondering, well, how can I recession proof my career? How can I protect myself during these economic uncertainties of what's happening? And how can I keep a pulse of what's happening in the market. So if you're currently working, and you're feeling really nervous and anxious about this upcoming recession, or you're wondering how you can protect yourself in case your company does do layoffs, or restructures? Well, today I'm going to share with you eight tips to help you recession proof your career. But for those that don't know me, my name is Claudia Miller. And I'm a career coach and I help career German women in tech land fulfilling jobs in less than 90 days, while still getting paid what they deserve. And on average, my clients get 56% in salary increases. So my clients have received anywhere between 30,000 and even up to $120,000 in additional earned income. And this episode is all about helping you land the job you want, or at least in this case, how to protect your career. So I'm going to talk first about some of the biggest mistakes I've seen people make in their careers, you know, uncertain times happen. So you're either perhaps maybe some people pretend everything's okay. It kind of puts a hand in the sand and just kind of ignore everything. The other one is they take advice from sources who don't have the answer. All my neighbors said this, oh, my uncle said that my sister said that. And they're not, you know, part of the career of workforce or they're not kind of in the aspect like a research company like Gartner or Deloitte work that kind of keep tabs of industry trends or career coach. So make sure like, who you pay attention to, and who you're falling sources from. Because you want to make sure you take advice from the right people, not just anyone. And there are those that just kind of freak out, but still take action. And that kind of creates said worry anxiety happening, but yet you're not doing anything about it. So if you feel like you fall into those three, or maybe you don't, maybe you're like, hey, I don't fall into any of these three, I kind of just want to learn so I can take a proactive measure, then this episode is for you. So like I said, I'm going to share with you eight tips to kind of help you recession proof your career, or really take a keep a good pulse, at least in your industry intercompany to kind of help us understand, is this good? Or is this bad? Should I start job searching or not? So the first one that I have here is if you do work for a public company, meaning you're into stock exchange, then you want to make sure you review your company's earnings call and you can just look up your company earnings call transcript, I prefer to just read the transcript that if you want to listen to the entire call, that's up to you, but I highly recommend a transcript. It's a lot easier and faster to read, skim through and then really get an understanding as opposed to having to listen to everything. But you want to see how the companies dealing with financial performance. Do they lose a big client? Did they lose a huge market segmentation? Are their current events impacting maybe their supply chain demand or just demand in the marketplace? Because that's really going to take a big importance of how the company is going to be performing. So your company relies heavily on like cryptocurrency Well, cryptocurrency right now is taking a big hit. So of your company's big market is cryptocurrency and it kind of just the wall has dried up probably By the Cup is going to start doing layoffs. The other thing is you also want to look during our nice cold, what are the high performing products or services your company has? And you want to make sure like, for example, I think I was reading a Oracle's earning transcript and I believe like, one of their products or services kind of generate over 40% of the company's revenue. So it's performing really well. It's had amazing growth. Now other areas in and do so well. So of course, if I was kind of reading this company's transcript, or earnings call, I would make sure it's like, how can I get into this department that's doing really well, it's bringing a lot of the company's revenue, it's been growing very fast in comparison to other departments, and how can I move in internally into this department. So that way, I can be part of the winning team. So those are things you kind of want to start looking for, and kind of like looking for the writing in the wall. So really, looking into the company's earnings transfer company earnings call transcript is very important. And that's how you can leverage that information. And the next one is researching the company's news and just kind of like press, what is happening, that the company lose a big client? Is the market taking a big hit? Did they acquire someone? Did they get acquired by someone who are these companies, and really understanding of like what is happening that you may not even know, I know that I worked at companies that the market, everyone else knew what was happening. And even though I worked as an employee, I didn't even know I had to find out a lot of these things at the same time as the public did. So sometimes a company is not able to disclose that information to their internal employees, for whatever reason, or they just kind of dropped the ball and forgot to let people know, their internal employees, like, Hey, this is happening. So you kind of want to really take a good look like what is the press out there are there anything new, they partner with someone, the big company to create this big solution or this product or service. So those are the things you want to start looking for. And you can also put in a Google alert. So that way, you're not having to always have to research. Once you've done the research, put a Google alert for your company name, the industry you're in, and perhaps one or two competitors. Because if you're seeing kind of articles coming across that your competitors have partnered, they have done all these things, they are doing really great. And your company hasn't done anything you're like, Okay, it's our competitor doing big things, they just partner with everything, they're probably going to eat up a big portion of that market share, and is my company gonna start taking a hit. So again, you get eyes and ears of what's happening in the marketplace, when you do your research. And then you can kind of be more practice than afterwards by creating those Google Alerts and kind of make the process just easier for you after that. Now, you also want to start making a list of your top achievements. I have a lot of clients where they don't have a LinkedIn or resume updated their email the list of their top achievements, especially if you've been at a company for such a long time, and you haven't had to update your resume. I highly recommend to make a list of your top achievements and talk about metrics. New, did you save money? How much? How much was it before? How much was it afterwards? Did you save on productivity? How do you know you saved on productivity? what it looked like before what it looked like afterwards? How long did it take? Did you provide any company savings? Did you negotiate some vendor contracts, and maybe you are able to save over 12% year over year, but what does that translate to in dollars every single year, and how long, you know, was just a contract for five or 10 years to start getting a lot of these metrics and making a list of your achievements. And I highly recommend this because one, you're going to start realizing all the great work that you've done, and you kind of have metrics tied to it to it's really going to help you with your resume, your LinkedIn and everything because you get to be more specific and kind of show them and be able to stand out from the competition. And in three, one of my clients said, Thank God, I tried to create a list of achievement, because it made my interview process so much easier. I no longer was guessing or trying to figure out, you know, how can I demonstrate my work or my you know, the skill sets that I have. But because I made the list of top achievements. Now I can easily reference that a know like the metrics the back of my hand. So the list of top achievements is going to help you a lot with that. And also just helping you build your confidence if you feel like your conference has taken a hit. And if you're like, Hey, I've been feeling confident this whole time perfect, we can maintain it. Because there are going to be times potentially if you do find out that you do need to start job searching, it can take a hit in your confidence and you don't want that leaking into the interview because it will impact whether or not you get the job offer and also how much you get offer. So you want to make sure you stay confident it come across as confident throughout the entire interview process. Now the next one, number four have an updated resume and LinkedIn profile. So the achievements the list of achievements you've had is going to make this process so much easier whether you decide to do it or you hire someone On the resume writer will really appreciate it and you will appreciate it too when it comes to writing your resume. So you want to make sure you have an up to date resume, or you have an up to date LinkedIn profile. That way, in case you need to start job searching, you could immediately already have a resume to start applying to jobs. Because sometimes even either you're updating your resume or hiring a resume writer, it can take anywhere between like, two to four weeks at a time, because you need to gather this information that you need to give to the resume writer, or you need to get on a call plus their calendars are getting booked up really quickly, because a lot of people are higher resume writers because a lot of people are job searching. So by being proactive now, whether you invest in the resume writer or you start doing it yourself, when if you have to come to a point where you need to start job searching, you kind of just immediately can start that process as opposed to delaying it by two to four weeks. Because now you still need to get your resume updated. The other thing is to by updating your LinkedIn profile, you're almost making yourself available to opportunities to come to you. So maybe you don't at this time, you did not have job searching but your LinkedIn is up to date. Now recruiters are reaching out to you for opportunities. So if you do see the writing on the wall, like hey, we just lost our biggest client and our company, or our company just taken a hit because of what's happening like current events, supply chain demand and management overall, and everything else around us, I think that we're probably gonna be doing layoffs. And if not, they're going to be cutting a lot on resources, where it's going to make my job even harder. Well, now you could just open up your LinkedIn profile and see three to four interviews or recruiters reaching out to you for interviews, what a great place to be in. So not necessarily because you're going to need it but you want to have that as an option. If you need to, you already have recruiters reaching out to you for opportunities that you want. And that way, you can just start the process immediately and not have to still delay it. Again, revamping your resume your LinkedIn profile, and then still having to go and search and apply to jobs. Instead, you have people coming to you. I've had my clients that even though they've already landed jobs, they still have recruiters reach out to them for opportunities. So and these are like big, heavy hitters. So like they have have Google, they have Facebook, they have Amazon, they have Apple kind of in their inbox 10 saying, Hey, we would love to interview would you be interested in a radar company? Thankfully, my clients already have their jobs. So they respectfully decline. Or they'll say, you know, what, unless you're able to, you know, offer this job at x salary. Right now, I'm not looking to move in sometimes those companies come back and say, You know what, okay, we can meet that salary, When can you come in for an interview. And that's kind of the position you want to be in. So making sure you have these things up to date, again, is setting you up for success. And it's also going to help you if you do need to start job searching, be able to get a head start and immediately get off to the races when it comes to job searching, as opposed to stumbling and then trying to figure it out. And again, I anticipate that some companies are going to be doing more layoffs towards the end of the year, perhaps at the beginning of the year. And you want to make sure you're the companies that are thriving, their companies are thriving during a recession, liquor, for example, always strive to a recession, healthcare as well. Even like during Kobe, when we were on lockdown Instacart was thriving at that time, because everyone wanted their groceries delivered, nobody wanted really to go into the grocery store. So there are countries industries that do thrive during a recession or during uncertain times. So make sure you're in those companies and in those industries. And again, that's why you want to make sure you are have all your marketing assets up to date, marketing assets, to me our resume, cover letter and your LinkedIn profile. So that way, you're ready to go off to the races if you need to. And then you're already having opportunities come to you. Then I have number five, start preparing for interviews and start building that story toolbox. Again, you don't want to be like the last person or using up interviews that you're able to get interviews, but you're losing those opportunities, because you don't have it interviewed in such a long time. Or you don't even know how to interview well, you don't even know like maybe you've been at your job now for 510 years. And you're like, I don't even know what interviews now look like nowadays. I know how I interview when I'm having people in, but I don't know what they expect. Companies. I've been with my company for so long. So that's what you want to start preparing for your upcoming interviews if you need to. If anything, it just makes you very polished. And you could just interview for some roles to kind of give you that practice. To see like making you feel confident. What are you doing well, where you're not doing well. So really started preparing for those interviews and your story toolbox. Again, it's going to really set you up for success. One of the biggest mistakes I see people making is they start job searching. They don't prepare for these interviews. They go in just winging it. They'll find out the answer don't know the answer once they're there, and they blow these opportunities they have. Now they lost on a big opportunity, whether it's a company or a big role, because they didn't prepare for the interview. And they have all the skill sets in order to be successful, but they themselves did an interview so well, that's why they get the job. And as kind of like a saying goes, like, the best person for the job doesn't always get the job is the best interviewer. So make sure that you have your interview skills on top and that you have sharpen them really well, you can interview confidently, so that way you can make the most out of these opportunities. When they do come. Then number six, start seeking mentors within your company, if you don't have one already, as well as outside the company. So by mentors, you want to start networking with organization, preferably their two to three levels above. And that way they can mention your names in rooms you're not currently not even allowed to be in. So they do do a layoff. Sometimes they'll say like, Okay, who do you think we should keep? Or who do you think we should lay off, and then you want to make sure you're mentioned for those keep or promotions, and that your name is never mentioned when it comes to layoffs. So you want to make sure you start looking for that mentor internally in two to three levels above. So that way they could kind of almost become your shield. Or if not, they can kind of hint at you to say like, Hey, there's going to be some changes, I recommend starting to loosen up your resume or your LinkedIn profile. Do you want to have kind of like these insiders within the company to kind of give you a get a good pulse of what's happening. And they can give you some mentorship, feedback or insights, or they might just connect you with someone within their network outside of the company. So that way, you immediately can just go in and to another company, without having to go through the hassle of like job searching and applying to all these jobs, because you have someone very high level of freedom. The reason why I want you to start also looking at mentorship outside your company. So it could be within your industry, or somewhere along the industry. So for example, if you're in tech, maybe you're in FinTech, for maybe your mentor is in healthcare tech, what you want to have this mentors because they might actually be able to give you a good insight, hey, you know what healthcare is doing really well. And I know you mentioned you're kind of worried of what may be happening. Why don't you know, I connect you with someone? Or why don't you come to my company, we're doing very well, we actually just got a big client, or we just got huge funding. And I think your skills could be a really good value to the company, why don't you come on over. And then now you're able to make that transition to a different industry, that's currently thriving right now. So that's why you want to have mentors within your company and outside your company, again, to kind of become your shield, comm your insiders and almost give you that red carpet treatment when it comes to job searching and opportunities out there that you might not have otherwise. Number seven, that is start reviewing job descriptions start highlighting skills that are required that you currently don't obtain. So let's just say that you're a senior manager for software engineers, well, then the next step, and maybe you've been in this role now for three to four years. Now you're ready for Director software engineering? Well, that's what maybe you're not applied to jobs externally, but maybe you're waiting for that promotion to come on in, or whatever reason it may be? Well, you want to start looking at job postings that are for Director, software engineering, and start looking at the skill sets that you feel like you currently don't have. Well, that's when you want to start building and becoming yourself almost becoming a top sought after candidate. You know what's asked you to do this yet, but maybe you want to start going and looking to or researching some of these certifications or knowledge that they're asking for, you know, is this a quick certification you can get on LinkedIn learning is this a $10 Coursera course, maybe this is a, you know, certification or training course you can go on Google or Facebook that they offer for free. And now you can start kind of preparing yourself to get those certifications to really sharpen your skill set to become more competitive in the marketplace. And if you do need to end up apply for jobs outside your company, you kind of don't have delaying getting those jobs, because now you need to acquire those certifications or skills, because you've already done that from the beginning. So you can go and start job searching with more ease more confidence, and kind of almost fast track it as opposed to, you know doing anything about it. So you want to have a good exit polls of what is happening in the marketplace. What are they asking for? How important are the certifications and skills? Can you acquire them, you know, easily like through LinkedIn learning or you know, maybe you can block out to three hours a week and then finish it out in six, seven weeks. And then great. Now you have those certifications or skills as opposed to figure it out that you're about to get laid off, and no one will hire you because you don't have the certification or skills, and now you're delaying your job search by six to eight weeks, which potentially can actually be around anywhere between 12 weeks for you to get a job. And imagine not having a paycheck throughout the whole time. So those are things you want to start thinking about, not only during recession, but just overall, at any point in time, you want to make sure you're always sharpening those skills, and you're staying competitive in the marketplace. And then number eight, I have here is search your industry trends. So a quick way to do it is search your industry. Industry trends in 2022. On Google, for example, I search tech industry trends in 2022. So I had two articles come up, one for Deloitte and one from Gartner have what they anticipate is happening, or will be happening in 2022, when it comes to tech industry trends. So one of the things that you want to start looking for is, is your industry projected to perform very well in the next few years? Are they stagnate? Or is it looking to decline? Like I mentioned, it's a car, they were doing really well during the lockdown. When things started opening up, the demand started going down because now people felt comfortable going into the grocery stores because there was vaccinations happening. And they took a hit. And then they had to do layoffs. So it could be temporary, or it could be long term. So you know, one of the things that I found when I looked up tech industry trends in 2022, and I'll share with you kind of show you the example. According to Gartner, in the tech industry, it looks like Data Fabric is anticipated to make a trend this year, Data Fabric can use analytics to learn and actively recommend where data should be used and changed. This can reduce data management efforts by up to 70%. So there's value in data fabric. So if maybe you'd be considering data management, maybe that's the you always been interested in. Or maybe you do something different. But you work closely aligned with data management, well, this might be the perfect time for you to see like, Hey, how is my role in my industry performing, maybe I can take a roll or maybe take some certifications or take classes to get a basic understanding and then start making that pivot and change, because it looks like it's going to be growing. And that can be almost recession proof at this point. Another thing that I found is, according to Deloitte, a specific thing they see playing a big role in this industry is moving to the cloud. So for example, if your company still has not moved to the cloud, while all your competitors have, that may also be a good indication of you need to either start taking some cloud classes and certifications if you need to. And if you know if you currently don't even have a basic understanding of cloud, or maybe you used to, but you haven't been using it so much because your company doesn't use Cloud Storage, well, then maybe you want to start freshening up that knowledge and skill set. So that way, if your company eventually does decide, hey, we need to move to the cloud immediately. You're kind of like a subject matter expert, because you've been refreshing yourself into cloud of how that works infrastructure whenever they need. Or maybe they start losing a lot of competition, they just can't keep up with all their competitors, because they haven't moved to the cloud. Well, maybe that's a good time for to say like, alright, well, I'm gonna look for a job elsewhere outside that is in the cloud. So that way, I could have a better secure job. And because I've already taken the skills and certifications, or freshen up my knowledge in cloud, I can make that quick pivot and transition. So this is how you want to leverage industry trends. And like I said, you can do it for any industry. I gave you the example of tech, most of my clients are in tech, but you can look up finance industry trends in 2022 marketing trends in 2022. You could look up ecommerce, I mean, there's any industry out there, you can look up the information and see what's happening, again, to almost help you forecast of what's going to be successful, where they're gearing towards where are the specific skill demands are going to be. And you kind of place yourself at the top there as almost a subject matter expert and you can do it with time and ease as opposed to feel like you have to scramble immediately because you just found out a layoff is coming. So these are the eight tips that I highly recommend to really help you prepare and really recession proof your career. So I'll give you a recap. Look up your company's earnings call if it's a public company, research your company's news and press releases and look for if they're they lose a big client they merge did they partner with a big company is a market currently taking a hit? You want to start making a list of all your top achievements. That's three, four have an updated resume and LinkedIn profile. Five Star prepare for interviews and your story toolbox if the time comes if you need to interview six start seeking mentors within your company and outside your company as well or even outside your industry. Seven start reviewing job descriptions and start highlighting skills that are required Are they currently don't obtained and then eight, start looking at your industry trends for 2022. So that is all the eight tips above that I have for you to kind of give you a good pulse on how the market is performing. And you'll be setting yourself up for success. So if you do see the writing on the wall, that your company may be doing layoffs or will be struggling, you will have armed yourself with the tools to succeed. And head off to the races when it comes to job searching. If you follow those eight tips about that I just mentioned. And I always like to say there's always winners and losers when it comes to job searching. Either you get the job, or you don't get the job. So make sure you're on the winning side. And I just share with you eight tips that will help you get there. Now, if you already know that you should probably start job searching, or maybe There have been talks around the office of a layoff coming. And you're like, I don't even know where to start, I don't even have to go through all of this, I can already tell you, I need to start preparing for this job search market, I immediately need to start preparing for a job, then I invite you to a complimentary career strategy call, there's no obligation, no risk, we get on a 60 minute call. And then we get to know each other a little bit more. I'm asking you what you're looking for, how is it going, I even tell you if you're being underpaid right now in your current role, and how much you should be asking for your next role. And that way I can set you up for success. And I could help you land a fulfilling job in the next 90 days, that has you set up to succeed and will be thriving in the next few months or years. And right now, we're still an unemployed dominated market. But we don't know for how long. I can't tell you unfortunate how long or when. But wait, now based on what I've been checking in the marketplace, there's still a lot of job opportunities, there's still companies struggling to hire top performers, and they're willing to pay for it. So you want to take advantage of it. And if you know you should be job searching, there's no more time to lose right now. Like I said, I anticipate there's going to be more companies doing layoffs towards the end of the year, probably beginning of the year, because some of them are finishing their fiscal year. So it is important that you are not the last one hired, first one fired. And then you want to make sure you set yourself up for success. And the other thing, too, is that you want to make sure you want to get the best deal in the next few months. What I mean by that is, you may be able to get a job, you know, in the next 90 days that pays 150k. But that same role may be paying 120 once, maybe by the end of the year or by next year, you won't be able to get that 150k job. So you want to make sure you start job searching now if you already know you should be doing it, start immediately, it's still an employee dominated market, there's still ways that you can kind of take precaution on how to make sure you find a job that's going to be successful that may not be struggling right now when it comes to this recession that we keep hearing about. And then in my proprietary program, 30 day job offer, I work with you and helping you land that job for the next 90 days, while still getting a salary increase. I actually just had two clients that signed up, and they've already landed jobs. And it's been less than 60 days. I think one of them was like maybe 45 days, and one of them actually received a 75% salary increase. So yes, there are still companies hiring. Yes, there's still opportunities out there. We don't know for how long so you want to make sure that you definitely get on top of it. You want to make sure you're prepared so that way you get the best deal out there when it comes to you in your career. So I hope you enjoyed this. And of course let me know if you have any questions and I'll see you next week with the next episode. Have a great day. Did you know I have started 100% free Facebook group dedicated to making job searching easy for career driven women and help them master their interviewing, networking and start negotiation skills. And we're doing free weekly trainings covering everything from how to sell yourself to increasing your salary by 30% minimum. Plus, you'll be in there with a network of other ambitious women. So make sure to join us by texting us the word join 28449951523 And we'll see you there