CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When businesses start rehiring, Charlotte career coach Andy Thomas says the job market won’t be the same.
“Quite a bit a difference in ways that we haven’t seen in your and my lifetime,” Thomas said.
Thomas says it's because a record number of unemployed people will be searching for a job too.
“Can you think of hundreds of thousands of applicants suddenly trying to get back into the workplace that have been displaced, trying to go after the few jobs that emerge quickly,” Thomas asked.
Thomas says it means jobs will have their pick of the litter.
“If I'm an employer, I'm sitting there with the potential of bringing into my company people who were even in the past overly qualified at a lower dollar,” Thomas said.
For college students like Carlos Williams, it’s worse.
“Our lives can’t start because America stopped,” Williams said.
"You're in a situation that no college student has ever been in that I can think of," Thomas said. "You’re going to have competition with people with a vast amount of experience."
Thomas says he’s hearing people say they’ll wait it out and worry about the job hunt as we come out of the crisis, and that would be a big mistake. He says what you do right now will make all the difference.
“You need to have LinkedIn looking really good, a resume should not be a cheaply put together resume, and you’ve got to start getting connections," Thomas said.
Thomas says you should also consider pivoting to businesses that are still doing well right now.
“Maybe you thought you were going to end up with this company, it might not be that company," Thomas said. "That company might not be as strong as it was three months ago.”
Thomas says if that means you need to change your career, you can prepare for that too.
“You have to change your resume," Thomas said. "You have to pull from your past that you have that’s some inkling toward that type of position.”
Thomas says even the idea of getting an internship may not happen any time soon, so the key is to get the decision-makers to notice you now.
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