Should you pause your job search until after the election?

Sarah Doody [00:00:00]: Hey there. I’m Sarah Doody, host of the Career Strategy Podcast. Many professionals are seeking more impact, flexibility, growth, and let’s face it, getting paid what they’re worth. But how do you unlock this in your career? It starts with strategy. I’m taking you behind the scenes of what’s working for my career coaching clients. You’ll hear strategies and actionable, yet sometimes against the grain, advice for how you can be the CEO of your career and stop dreading Mondays. Ready to level up your career? Let’s get after it. Hey, friend.

Sarah Doody [00:00:38]: Welcome back to another episode of the Career Strategy Podcast. And today, we’re not gonna waste any time. We are tackling a common question I hear all the time. Should I wait until after the election to start my job search? And if you’ve been thinking about holding off your job search because of the election, then this episode is for you. Or maybe you’re in the middle of a job search and it’s not going as you planned, and you’re just, kind of, thinking of hitting pause until January. So, today, we are going to talk about why waiting to start or continue your job search until after the election could actually set you back, and what you can do to get ahead now even with uncertainty in the air. So, first of all, let’s talk about the election waiting game is what I’ll refer to it as. And this problem, right, that many of you feel like it’s smart and safe to wait until after the election before you really dive into your job search.

Sarah Doody [00:01:49]: Right? Maybe you’re thinking, what if things change politically? What if the economy slows down? Should I hold off until I know what’s going to happen? And there is less uncertainty. So here’s the truth. While it’s tempting to play the waiting game in your job search until after the election, the truth is the job market doesn’t hit pause for elections. Right? The reality is you could be waiting for months for the dust to settle, and in that time, you would have lost any momentum that you could have been creating or that you already have right now because you’ve already been applying for jobs for 6 weeks or something like that. So we don’t want to automatically just join the election waiting game when it comes to your job search. Now, let’s talk about the reality here. The reality is that job markets don’t wait for elections. Right? Elections might create uncertainty, but companies are still hiring before, during, and after an election.

Sarah Doody [00:02:59]: Right? Many businesses are actually gearing up to fill roles as they prepare for the end of the year and to set themselves up to be in a position where they are better kinda staffed up to achieve their goals in 2025. The job market operates based on business needs, not political outcomes. And if a company needs a UX designer or product manager or researcher or writer or product manager or whatever it is, they’re not gonna wait for the election results to make that higher. Right? If companies are considering hiring, it’s because there is a hole somewhere on a team or there is an unmet need, and they wanna fill that hole, meet that need now because there are probably side effects of not hiring that person and continuing to have an understaffed team, etcetera. But here’s another thing to think about. So after the election, you’re probably gonna see a big wave of people who decided to play the election waiting game and not apply to jobs until after the election. And if you wanna stand out, you don’t wanna be a part of that wave of people. Right? Because when they all rush into the job market, maybe in January or February, competition for roles gets tighter.

Sarah Doody [00:04:40]: Right? But if you start now, you will be ahead of that post election job rush. Big, big deal. Right? It’s a lot easier to stand out if there are less applicants. So think about that. Alright. So what are we going to do as very strategic people in our careers? Because you are listening to the Career Strategy Podcast. Alright. So it’s pretty simple.

Sarah Doody [00:05:09]: Let’s not wait. Let’s take action now. You can use this time to get a competitive advantage. Right? While others are waiting on the sidelines, having hit pause, just gonna see what happens. Right? So here are three things you can do now and not later to set yourself up to either get hired faster or definitely be ready to stand out from a bunch of people in January. So number 1, we wanna get ahead of the competition. Right now, the market may not feel as crowded, which means you have more room to stand out right now. And if you wait until after the election, you’re gonna be fighting for attention and visibility with everyone else who waited too.

Sarah Doody [00:05:55]: So we wanna get it ahead of the competition now. Number 2, I would say we wanna focus on business needs and not election results. And this is this is kind of a mindset thing, to be honest. Right? Because as I said before, companies hire when they have a business need, and businesses’ needs don’t stop just because there is an election. Right? Businesses actually may even accelerate their hiring as companies wrap up the end of their fiscal year and, like I said, staff up to meet the needs that they have for whatever projects and activities are on the company’s calendar for 2025. The third thing I want you to remember here is just you have to focus on controlling what you can control. I know elections are always a very tumultuous time. And at the same time, we can’t control the outcome of the election personally.

Sarah Doody [00:07:05]: We can’t control the economy, and we can’t control what hiring managers are gonna do or not do, but we can control how prepared you are and whether or not you take action now. Right? So I really want you to think about using this time to get your resume published, update your portfolio, add that project you’ve been meaning to add, optimize your LinkedIn profile so people can actually find you, start nurturing those relationships that you’ve neglected, or engage in authentic relationship building and maybe different communities you might belong to. Those are all things that you could be doing, frankly, even if you decide to not apply to jobs until after the election. You can at least still be doing these things. Although, I really recommend we don’t wait to apply to jobs just because there is an election. Alright. I want to address a few things that might be going in your head right now because I’m going to guess maybe you’re thinking, okay. What if things change after the election? Shouldn’t I wait and see what happens before I jump into the job market? And, you know, this is a valid concern, but in reality, even in times of uncertainty, people are still getting hired.

Sarah Doody [00:08:30]: Right? Even though you see posts on social media where people are saying they’re getting laid off or having trouble in their job search, there are other people who are posting that they’re getting hired. Part of the thing is, maybe you’re not connected to them, maybe you’re not seeing the posts, etcetera, but I realize it’s very easy to make generalizations when we see posts about the job market, etcetera, that we have to remember that in times of uncertainty, people are still getting hired, especially in user experience, product, etcetera. They’re getting hired at many companies outside the tech industry. We have a whole other episode where I talk about how to get hired in tech jobs outside the tech industry. I will link to those in the show notes also. Alright. So one of the great things about the job search accelerator that I run called Career Strategy Lab is that we give you the tools to essentially be recession proof, maybe even election proof, and to stand out no matter what is going on around you. So instead of waiting for things to calm down, why not start now? Why not lay the groundwork so that if you start applying in January or November or December or whenever it is, you at least have laid a really solid foundation if you choose to sit out on the sidelines until after.

Sarah Doody [00:10:10]: Alright. So what can you be doing right right now? Let’s do a quick recap. I want you to update your resume and your portfolio to make sure it’s ready to go. We have some resume and portfolio episodes. We’ll link to those in the show notes also. Next thing, number 2, start reaching out to your network. Reconnect with people you’ve worked with before. Let them know you might be on the market.

Sarah Doody [00:10:38]: And even if you’re not kinda wanting to publicize that you might be looking for a job, just talk to them. Reconnect. Have a conversation so that if you do reach out to them in 3 weeks, in 6 weeks, in 5 months, at least you, hopefully, are going to be remembered by them because you took the time to stay visible to them. Right? Next thing, keep an eye out for roles that align with your career goals. This could be a great time to just be collecting jobs that you want to apply to. And even if you don’t apply, studying those job descriptions could be very valuable because job descriptions provide great clues as to what should be on your resume and in your portfolio, etcetera. But the worst thing I really believe you can do is to wait for external events to dictate your career moves. So I want you to take control of your future no matter what is happening in the world.

Sarah Doody [00:11:41]: Alright. Remember that the job search does not stop for elections. And if you can start now, you are positioning yourself to be ahead of the curve, and that is super super strategic. So I hope this reframes your job search a little bit. Feel free to let me know. If you’re listening on Spotify, you can actually now leave comments on each podcast episode. So if you leave a comment, I will be thrilled because this is a brand new thing on Spotify, and I will reply back. It’d be great.

Sarah Doody [00:12:15]: We’ll have a conversation about this episode. And of course, if you find this helpful, please leave us a review. Just give us a star rating. It takes what? 5 seconds to go tap a few stars. That helps the algorithms know that people find this helpful. And then we can be climbing in those charts for career podcasts, which would be awesome. Maybe to be number 1 someday, who knows? Alright. Thanks for tuning in.

Sarah Doody [00:12:45]: I will talk to you next week. Thanks for listening to the Career Strategy Podcast. Make sure to follow me, Sarah Doody, on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. If anything in today’s episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it. Tag me on social media or send me a DM. And lastly, if you found this episode helpful, I’d really appreciate it if you could share it with a friend or give us a quick rating on Spotify or review on Apple Podcasts. Catch you later.