By Jeremy Schifeling
The LinkedIn Higher Education team I led served millions of students and recent college grads across the world. Through that experience, my team and I learned several important lessons along the way, particularly when it came to navigating economic uncertainty. Below are my top three lessons learned based on that experience:
Lesson 1: Even in the Midst of Crisis, There’s Always Opportunity
As bad as the Great Recession in 2008 was, here’s something you may not remember: Even at the absolute worst moment—spring 2009—there were more than 2 million open jobs in the United States. While you may feel like you’re swimming upstream, remember that there are still opportunities out there, even during tough times.
Here are a few tricks for finding those opportunities:
- Look beyond the usual suspects. While big, public organizations can slow hiring during challenging moments since they’re judged, at least partially, on stock price, smaller, private companies often keep hiring. With that in mind, regularly check out places like Wellfound (formerly AngelList Talent) for startup jobs and Idealist for nonprofit roles.
- Look beyond recruiters. Recruiters and campus recruiting budgets are often the first thing to get cut during a downturn, but that doesn’t mean the firms they work for have stopped hiring. Indeed, the very same month Google announced thousands of layoffs, there were more than 600 jobs still listed on their careers page. Because you cannot necessarily count on recruiters to find you, start searching for the actual hiring managers, who can typically be found on LinkedIn just by searching for terms like “I’m hiring” or “We’re hiring.”
- Look beyond your zip code. While there may have been a time when students were stuck with the state of the local economy, that time has passed. Even as more professionals return to the office, there are still plenty of fully remote jobs open across the country, so if you don’t see lots of opportunity outside your door, add a “remote” filter to your job searches to find the best opportunities—wherever they are!
Lesson 2: When the Odds Are Stacked Against You, Alumni Are the Ace Card
“Everyone is telling me to tap my network, but I don’t even have a network!” That was such a common complaint amongst students during the Great Recession that my team at LinkedIn decided to do something about it.
First of all, as alumni ourselves, we knew the big secret of higher education: As valuable as classes and degrees are in the short term, the longest-lasting gift of postsecondary education is that you always have a network. Long after you’ve completely forgotten how to calculate a derivative and where your diploma ended up, you’ll always have access to the Wolverines, Blue Devils, or Banana Slugs who can help you break into their firms.
But because so many students don’t appreciate this network until after they’ve graduated, we built the Alumni Tool at LinkedIn to make it incredibly visible immediately. All you have to do is look up your school on the site and click the “Alumni” tab.
Here are three pro tips to get the most out of it:
- Filter by major. If you are just beginning your searches, the idea of reaching out to alums can feel incredibly intimidating. An easy place to start is to filter through alums based on “What they studied” (which you can find by clicking “Next” a few times). This has the added benefit of identifying paths that may not have been obvious.
- Get a warm intro. Another big challenge when you’re new to networking is getting over the mental block that comes with reaching out to alums. After all, even if you know an alum works at your dream company, the idea of reaching out cold can leave you feeling … well … cold!
To make the first couple forays easier, filter specifically for alums who are 2nd degree connections, which means these alums know someone in common with you, which can broker a warm introduction. - Think broadly about alumni. While the most common definition of “alum” is linked to a school affiliation, it turns out that you can have alumni from just about any part of your identity—company alumni, volunteer alumni, even geographic alumni.
When you’re hunting for jobs at a specific company, consider applying any of these filters:
- Past Companies: Show me everyone who used to work at IBM, where I did my summer internship.
- Keywords: Show me everyone who has “Habitat for Humanity” on their profiles, since I volunteer there.
- Location: Show me everyone in the Buffalo office, since that’s where I’m from.
Lesson 3: Sustainable Success Comes From Within, Not the External Economy
While the first two lessons were all about glimmers of opportunity even during tough times, the most important lesson has less to do with the economy and more to do with how you see yourself within it.
Specifically, the students who impressed us the most during the Great Recession and who came out of it stronger than ever weren’t necessarily the most skilled or those with the fanciest credentials. Instead, they were the ones who kept an internal locus of control in the face of all the external adversity.
What this means from a psychological perspective is that no matter how chaotic the world felt around them, they always felt like they were still in control of their own destiny.
Now, obviously, each person has a different locus based on life experience, genetics, etc., but one of the greatest ideas to remember is that regardless of your natural tendencies, you really do have tremendous power—even in a challenging moment.
Here are three ways to remember that:
- Look at the data. If it was true that job seeking was completely based on luck, it wouldn’t matter how you applied for jobs. After all, everyone would have the same lousy chances, but we know that’s not true. Look at hiring data from any reputable organization and it will show just how important connections are when it comes to getting hired.
- Look for support from career services on campus. Once you understand how important the way you apply for jobs is, the next step becomes leveraging this power for yourself. The staff at your campus career center will be able to provide you with information on how to do exactly that!
- Have a good time. I suspect that one of the reasons the referral rate is so low is that it feels so tedious but remember the effort will ultimately be worth it in the end! This isn’t a process that can or should be completed quickly, so you don’t need to stress out if you don’t see immediate results.
Here’s hoping that you come away with your own internal locus of control, stemming from everything you can do to prepare right now, and here’s wishing you incredible success during this moment and beyond!
Jeremy Schifeling is a former senior associate director of career services at the University of Michigan. He is also an author and the cofounder of The LinkedIn Guys.
