Why starting your job search early could pay off in the long run...
When would you typically decide to leave a job? Would it be after spending years of your life trying to impress your line manager, with limited opportunity to progress? Perhaps there have been changes to your bonus structure which, should you achieve the same target as you did this year, means you’ll be paid less in the new year. Maybe it’s even down to a significant period of change which has resulted in a new management team- and you feel you should have been offered the opportunity yourself.
These are all are good reasons for looking to depart, but have you considered the value in searching for a new role before this?
With the UK unemployment rate at a forty-year low of 4%, the skills shortage is becoming a very real issue for many industries across the country, from General Insurance to Financial Services and Law. The market is rich with opportunity but heavily candidate-short and beginning your search early allows you to explore your options more freely.
After all, the right role rarely arises the moment you commence your search.
Taking the initiative
In a recent survey,48% of UK employees within SME organisations stated that they’re planning to change jobs in the next twelve months. The top reasons for this may resonate well with you: a perceived lack of recognition, limited opportunities for career development or progression, limited support from management and a feeling of being underpaid.
If this is the case, there’s a lot to be said for taking the initiative and speaking with an experienced recruiter in your sector before you spend hours redrafting your CV and starting your search. Let’s be honest: job hunting can be quite a rigorous, time-consuming chore that can often leave you a little frustrated when opportunities do not present themselves!
Why? These job adverts don’t understand you or your motivations, nor what’s prompting you to commence your search today. Instead, reaching out to a specialist recruiter in your market allows you to bypass most of these problems.
The benefits of a recruiter
The UK’s recruitment industry is worth £32.2bn, and for good reason: we, as experienced recruiters, help to place millions of talented candidates in roles where they can thrive every year.
Recruitment Consultants have big networks and strong relationships with key businesses and hiring managers who are actively searching for people like you. We invest time in understanding both hiring managers and their businesses, the current state-of-play in the market and emerging trends. As a result, we can provide you with advice on whether your next role exists and how quickly you could hope to achieve it, giving you reassurance that you’re making more of an informed choice about your career.
By launching your search early and utilising a recruiter, you can truly take time to seek out not only the right position but the right business too. Now you don’t have to change jobs- or even want to change jobs- immediately, but putting feelers out will allow you to gather a good idea of how fierce the competition for your ideal job is, whilst also gathering an insight into your chances of success.
Job satisfaction and fulfillment are of course the ultimate goals, and by taking more of a multi-faceted approach to your career search you can feel more assured that the role you’ve secured inside the business best matches your long-term objectives. The results? Higher motivation, more job satisfaction, and a great career opportunity.
Is there a best time?
44% of the UK’s SME workforce admit to regularly feeling stressed, and more than 1 in 3 said they’d taken sick leave as a result. Earnings were the biggest worry which topped the list, so wouldn’t it be good to understand your value in today’s marketplace, or which job opportunities could help you feel more valued?
Having early-stage conversations with expert recruiters can provide you with an easy means of assessing your current working predicament, which is considered to be standard practice. We’re here to help you source your next opportunity, and we have the knowledge, experience and market intelligence to help you decide on whether the time is right to consider new opportunities, or whether to wait until you’ve secured a more desirable level of experience.
As a result of these early-conversations, we can then help better align upcoming opportunities to what you’re searching for; allowing you to get ahead of your competition, and giving you a greater chance for success at interview.
The key point is, the right time to begin your career search is very much down to you. That said, the more time you invest in a recruiter, the greater the chances we will secure your next opportunity. It’s a business partnership: the more you trust your recruiter, and the more you tell them, the more likely they are to find you your ideal next role.
Find greater security with IDEX Consulting
Taking pride in making you successful is a key tenet of our business and one that all our recruiters take extremely seriously. We focus on finding you job opportunities that fit with your long-term objectives, so that when you do accept a role, you know that suitable diligence has been made to ensure it’s the best one for you.
Whether you’re actively looking or just planning for the future, it’s time to get involved: why not talk to one of our experts here
