What did you do while you were \u201cbetween jobs\u201d?<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve been out of work, there are plenty of reasons why employers will ask that question. You\u2019d best come up with an answer that rings true.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m thinking of the hundreds of thousands of federal non-exempt employees, including many in San Diego, now wondering what\u2019s going to happen next.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It appears they\u2019ll be forced to wait days or even weeks to find out.<\/p>\n
For currently unemployed workers, we\u2019re hearing that it takes an average of six months to land a new position. That\u2019s especially true, painfully so, for recent college graduates.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even if you had a thriving career and decided on your own to drop out of the job market for very legit reasons, what did you do with your time off?<\/p>\n
When you\u2019re entering or re-entering the job market, it\u2019s a logical question to ask, and interviewers, either live or avatars, will ask it in a variety of ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Responding with, \u201cWell, I took time off for child care\u201d or \u201cI was taking care of my aging parents,\u201d may earn points for empathy, especially if it\u2019s true.<\/p>\n
But you\u2019d be far better off if you\u2019re able to say, \u201cI just completed an internship and I\u2019m ready to take the next step.\u201d<\/p>\n
As I\u2019ve written many times before, I\u2019m a huge fan of internships.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They\u2019re not only the best way to land a permanent job, they\u2019re also a respected (and maturation) event, proof that the intern has spent time in an adult work setting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In my mind, there\u2019s no better way to enter (or re-enter) the job market.<\/p>\n
He graduated a few months ago<\/p>\n
Recently, I interviewed the son of a friend of mine for a job opening with one of Manpower\u2019s clients. He had graduated a few months ago and hadn\u2019t taken looking for a job seriously until now.<\/p>\n
Now he was in panic mode.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I casually asked him how his summer went, he first proudly pointed out that he had dropped three strokes off his golf handicap.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Good for him.<\/p>\n
But he wasn\u2019t at all pleased when I told him that the candidate before him had worked part-time during school and every summer worked as an intern in his chosen field.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And that the other candidate before him had spent his summer volunteering in Guatemala to build schools for needy children and had an internship waiting for him when he returned.<\/p>\n
As I often do, I asked the new grad to figuratively switch sides of the desk with me, and which candidate he\u2019d move forward in the interview process.<\/p>\n
Who showed the most ambition? Who sold his capabilities to win an internship and worked as an intern in the field he was majoring in?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Who, if I gave him a project, could I be most confident in him taking it on and staying with it until completion?<\/p>\n
He got the message.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But by this point there was no way he could rewrite his resume to catch up with those other candidates.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Federal workers across the country<\/p>\n
As for those hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers across the country, most are non-exempt employees, meaning they\u2019re paid hourly and qualify for overtime.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re deemed non-essential, thus only temporarily furloughed and not fired. As soon as the federal funding is approved, they will likely receive all of their back pay.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But if their job is deemed essential, such as TSA workers, they\u2019ll still have to work a normal schedule with no paid time off.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re trying to return to work, for whatever reason, how do you come back better than when you left?<\/p>\n
Are there certificate classes that will raise your skill levels? How about online courses that will teach you a new skill, like Excel spreadsheets? Or volunteering in a field that improves your soft skills?<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re concerned (as you should be) about how AI will impact your work, use this time to \u201cAI proof\u201d your career.<\/p>\n
Be the candidate that improved their skill set. Not the one who improved their golf handicap.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fore!<\/p>\n