10 Jun Seeking COVID job opportunities? Stretch the boundaries of your box

COVID related job opportunities

Stretch your box

When is a letter carrier not just a letter carrier?
When they are also a parcel deliverer.

Can we create opportunities for ourselves in these uncertain times by looking for jobs in places that we hadn’t thought to look?

Should we change our pre-COVID conceptions of what organizations did or now could do?

Loss

COVID-19 has landed many of us in a crisis – health-related and economic.

We are stuck in a conundrum where many of us need income, but with organizations in the same situation, there is less income available during this period of lockdown.

This has resulted in many jobs, internships and summer jobs being rescinded, causing immense grief. Uncertainty and lack of access to the crucial funding threatens payment for things such as next year’s tuition.

Creativity & pivots

From organizations such as food banks & grocery stores to governments & individuals, we are seeing incredible and innovative responses to the unfolding and extending crisis.  

The Canadian Government has responded with support for small business, individuals and for students as so many process their financial future, unable to access their normal sources for putting food on the table.

For many, this may have been a 3-pronged solution where they were working a full-time job, driving Uber in the evenings, and AirBnB’ing a room in their homes. All precarious work has been rocked. All shared-resource structures are now having to deal with the pressures of social distancing.

New world order creates new opportunities

Organizations are innovating their response to COVID

You can probably add your own to this list:

• Postal organizations that are now doing door deliveries to support clients who are having products shipped to their door step
• Grocery stores have moved to home delivery and curb pick-up models to reduce the number of people in-store
• Students who are becoming teachers by creating learning opportunities for those a year behind, so that they can have access to mindset growth opportunities
• Hospitals that are working with sign companies to direct patients correctly
• Stores have re-designed their layouts to facilitate one-way systems in their aisles
• Schools are blending on-line classes with 50% attendance on-site
• Ballet productions, museums & symphonies are expanding their fan-base by sharing their collections via YouTube
• High school students are 3D-printing PPE to support those that need
• Other professionals with supply-chain experience are smoothing the hiccups in the system

So, where are you looking for new & different COVID-job opportunities?

Put yourself in your (own) shoes.

As you work from home, what do you wish existed as a service?
Where have you jury-rigged a solution? Either by short-circuiting a process or tying together 3 other processes that existed independently before?

Recently I wanted to expand the technical reach for my 80-yr-old aunt who is self-isolating. By accessing some free technology that my 15-yr-old nephew pointed me to, I was able to remotely take control of her desktop, install Zoom, and give her an in-person tutorial. Her smile at being able to see family after so long was reward sufficient!

Down-time vs Up-skilling

You may think you are in downtime.
But in reality you are in a period of up-skilling.

Like a toddler who suddenly has extended naps or a teen who insatiably loads up on carbs just before that inevitable growth spurt, this is the quiet period.

It is up-skilling time.

So go out, and gather a wide variety of skills: Curiosity, creativity, connectivity, team-building & communication, convincing/persuasion, critical thinking, taking the wider perspective and the long view.

Add new technology or tools to your belt so that you can replace that in-person experience with something almost as good as.

Where is your growth opportunity?

In every situation there are industries that will be positioned to take advantage. In the middle of this COVID crisis they include:

• Signage companies
• Home delivery related industries (including packaging)
• Sterile packaging
• Disinfecting and cleaning services (hospitals, schools, offices, AirBnBs, Ubers, etc.)
• Personal support workers especially for at-home elderly

Send me companies that made your list, and I will add it to this list.

Bottom line – stretch the boundaries of your pre-Covid conceptions

Ask not what the company used to do, but how they have pivoted to redesign themselves in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

The shorter watch with transcript:

Transcript for the video:

I’ve recently been having a lot of conversations with young people about jobs. The loss of summer jobs, the loss of internships, and, um, yes, we’re in the middle of the COVID crisis.

There are a number of organizations where regardless of what their intentions are, they just don’t have the budget in order to be able to support the various positions that they thought they would like to have used this summer.

And it’s not just the young amongst us. This is actually hitting across all age groups.

Thinking differently

Well, the other day I was out here doing my planters, um, and a Canada Post truck drove up. And what was unusual about that was this was a weekend. It was a Sunday And I was quite surprised to see Canada Post doing a delivery. Because in Canada, the postal system does not deliver on weekends.

So I approached the delivery person and asked her. Um, And she mentioned that with the Covid crisis and the increased demand for, uh, supplies being delivered to people’s homes, Canada post had changed their structure.

They’d stepped into the gap and were now delivering as often as they possibly could.

So this got me thinking, because I just come away from a discussion, like I said, about the loss of jobs.

Organizations are not behaving as they used to

And it struck me that here was an opportunity for us to change the way we think about an organization. So my question to you is have you approached organizations like Canada Post looking for some other opportunities?

They may not be your first choice. But they seem to be in as much need – in fact more need – because of this crisis.

Are you looking past historical  (pre-COVID) employment models?

And it also struck me that, you know, I grew up in England.  We were used to getting weekend delivery of our post. And during Christmas you’d even get like two or three deliveries a day.

And this structure in Canada was quite the opposite where, you know, in areas such as mine, you actually don’t get door delivery for your mail – you actually have to go to a mailbox.

The dynamics of the country changed the way the postal service delivered, and I had to learn that.

Change the way you look at an organization

So I’m asking you to consider the rules by which you actually look at an organization.

Are they based on history? And is there an opportunity for you to revisit an organization that you typically might not have thought of and say ‘Could they be reacting to the COVID crisis in a different way?’

‘Could they be expanding their job opportunities to step into needs that they’re seeing – that are arising in the area?’

Call to Action – Stretch the boundaries of your box

So my invitation to you is: Don’t just look at the box that you’re used to. Start thinking outside the box. Start stretching the boundaries of what you’re used to for an organization. And go visit them. Ask them if there’s been a change in the way they’re hiring, and maybe there’s an opportunity there for you.

I’m Karena de Souza. This is an episode from Tilt the Future where we talk about changing your mindset and using that to explore new opportunities.

See you next time.