Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep92: The best times to apply for a new job.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Grow Your Career online and offline podcast. So you are definitely at the right place if you are a corporate professional looking to grow your corporate career. So today let's talk about when is the best time to look for jobs. So right now, if you're

Starting point is 00:00:47 listening to this live episode, it is November and not typically during the year-end. I do get a lot of questions from corporate professionals asking me if, hey, maybe it's the year-end, should I start looking for jobs right now or should I wait till next year? Is there like a better time given my experiences or given my education? Does any of these impact the time that I should be looking for jobs? So let's slow down. There are a couple of really, really good questions over there. And the main point is this, right? On an ongoing basis, if you're seeing jobs being posted, that means that the company has a requirement. So I'd say 99% of the time, if there are no real requirement, then typically hiring managers, HR, nobody really has the time to go through this whole circle of, you know,

Starting point is 00:01:42 getting the budgets approved, posting the jobs, interviews, all these things. Nobody will actually make an effort to do any of these if there is no real business requirement to hire. So general ground rule, anytime is the best time to apply. However, there are some very specific tips on potentially better months to look into. So this is what I'll be sharing with you guys in today's episode. Now, one of the common misconceptions I hear from people is the fact that, hey, I think December is generally a

Starting point is 00:02:17 very slow month, nobody is working. So does it mean that I should just completely ignore the month of December and only focus my job search in January and February? This is a very, very good question and I think a very right juncture to be asking these questions as well. So based on my experience, right, as a former hiring manager, I would say for sure that January and February will be a pretty good time to look for a job. The reason is because a lot of the headcount, budgets and approval, right, everything pretty much restarts in January, February. So generally speaking, right, when people come to work, I guess in the beginning of the year, right, all the activities kickstart again. You might be seeing HR recruiters, hiring managers, actually, you know, kickstarting the entire interview process, right, hiring process.

Starting point is 00:03:10 So definitely I'd say that there's a lot more activity happening in January and February. Now, the main question, which is really around, okay, is December a good time or like, you know, should I just kind of wait around and what should I do? My personal experience is the last two weeks of December, or maybe I say the last week of December, that was actually the time I got headhunted by Standard Chartered's Global HR via LinkedIn. So one thing I want you all to remember is the fact that, hey, it's December,

Starting point is 00:03:45 most people are on vacation or on holiday. That's true, but there are some people working as well, right? So never forget that, hey, there are actually some people working and there are some, you know, HR and recruiters and talent acquisition people actually working in the office because not everybody can go on holiday at the same time, right? So there are actually people working. That is a really important point to keep in mind. And personally, for me, I recall many years ago, before I joined Standard Chartered, I got the call from HR the last week of December. So last week of December, for sure, everything slows down. And personally, I didn't really expect to receive the call from HR as well. And the conversation went very well, of course.

Starting point is 00:04:32 It wasn't very long, maybe about 15, 20 minutes. The HR reached out to me, said, hey, Mei-Ping, I found, I came across your profile on LinkedIn, really like what you have done and in terms of background skills and experiences. And we are recruiting for a role at Standard Chartered in a global team that's going to be a pioneer team. The next year, right, in January is the official date that the team will, I guess, officiate, right?

Starting point is 00:04:58 So she was basically in the process of like looking for team members that would really be suitable for this pioneer team running regulatory projects right so she reached out to me and we spoke in the end of december so i passed the hr interview in the end of december actually the call itself but of course right she scheduled the interview session with the hiring managers in january so basically the first week of january and if you look at the dates, it's basically next week itself, right? I mean, minus New Year's Day and so forth. So she scheduled for that meeting,

Starting point is 00:05:32 the interview, the next week itself, which is for the first week of January. So basically everything was done so smoothly. And I think in a way, it created more opportunities for me because I was probably one of those few people who was not on holiday, was not on vacation in December and when H.R. when H.R. called me, I was there. I spoke to her and she scheduled everything. Everything went very

Starting point is 00:06:00 smoothly and the first week of January, I went for two interviews with Standard Charter's team, right? The regional director, as well as one of her associate directors. And within the next week itself, I already got the job offer. So for those of you who think that, hey, December is a really, you know, vacation time, I should just, you know, sit around and do nothing. That actually is not true, right? So based on, like I said, based on my experience, the magical time is actually the last week of December. And one of the other benefits also is that if you put in your application in, you know, at the end of December, what that also could mean is in January, when everybody comes back to the office, your resume or your CV might be right on top of the pile, right?

Starting point is 00:06:47 It could be right at the top of the system. So that means that you may be a little bit more visible as well in terms of getting your CV or resume reviewed by the HR, hiring manager and so forth. So I think never discount the fact that December would be a slow month. Yeah, probably generally speaking slow, but if you are looking for a new role, then definitely focus on that. Now, going back to the January, February timing, the asset that is going to be more active, an active job market, right, could also mean there's more competition.

Starting point is 00:07:27 And more competition because everybody knows january and february right there are more opportunities and normally in january or february a lot of companies pay out their bonus as well so all these people who have been surviving at their jobs until the year end, until December, when they get their bonus in January or February, suddenly they're like, okay, fine, it's time for me to go. And now I'm going to start throwing all the job applications in. And you are going to be probably one of them who genuinely want to look for a new career growth opportunity. Now your resume, now your CV is going to get dumped together with all these people who just can't wait to escape their jobs and now these people become competition for you so i think just some food for thought um obviously you know i still recommend the period of i say like the last week of december all the way to february being like the most active and the most i'd rather i'd rather pick period

Starting point is 00:08:21 right to apply for new jobs but i think also recognize that if you're going to do your job search actively, somebody else, and not just somebody else, potentially hundreds and hundreds of other people might have that exact same thought process also. So you just want to make sure that you have a very strong resume and CV and a very strong networking strategy. And particularly, definitely based on my experience, I recommend LinkedIn because that was how I was found over Christmas period. Yeah, for just a bit

Starting point is 00:08:53 of a memory. Yeah, definitely over Christmas period, my profile was found and the last week of December, I got the call. So some things to keep in mind if you really want to increase your chances, but as always, regardless of any time of the year, make sure that you're always, always equipped with the updated version of your CV that shows your background skills and experiences to best position yourself as the best candidate, right? Whether you are actively looking or not looking, I think that's something that you should still have also.

Starting point is 00:09:24 Then the other thing, just one final point before we end, I had a client ask me this question a couple of days ago and she said, I'm not exactly a fresh graduate. I've worked for about a year or so. Should I apply for the talent graduate programs and just wait a few more months to apply when the window opens or should I just apply if I see a role that I like. So if you're not a fresh graduate, then you don't necessarily need to follow the graduate program because if you do that, then guess what? You're going to compete with hundreds and thousands of other graduates who are also in that exact situation. Then there is actually more competition for you. And you are also discounting all the working experience that you have accumulated in the past six to 12 months,

Starting point is 00:10:09 because probably think about it, right? A HR that is hiring graduates, they're just going to assume that everybody has zero working experiences. So like I said, food for thought and just a recap right anytime is a good time to apply for new jobs if you know what you want you have a strong cv you have a very strong job search strategy if you're just looking to spam for your job applications probably you're not going to see results anyway so take note make sure that the intention is very clear you are are clear on what you want. You are equipped with your resume, CV, LinkedIn profile that will aid you to get to what you want, right? Get to the opportunities that you're really looking for. And finally, if you really, really want to zone in on, I guess, the most active time, then definitely I would recommend the end of December up till February. So with that, all the best if you are looking for more opportunities

Starting point is 00:11:06 in the new year or in the next couple of months and definitely persevere. Perseverance is really the magic to getting the results that you want. So talking about it, thinking about it, it's not going to make anything happen and things really only happen when you take action. So with that, I'll see you in the next episode. Bye!

Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep92: The best times to apply for a new job.

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