The impact of COVID-19 on job hunting

　Covid-19 changed everyone’s life, no matter in which aspects. Some people lost their lives, and others lost their studies, jobs and so on. In university, the people are influenced most by this Covid-19 should be those who are currently in the process of job hunting. They met a lot of unexpected difficulties and problems in such a hard time. We interviewed 2 persons whose job hunting process was disturbed by Covid-19, the process includes the searching job information, job application, communication with the company, and getting an offer from the company. They shared their thoughts and situation regarding the difficulty in job hunting procedure.

　The first interviewee is Y, who is currently applying for jobs in various industries such as consulting and IT. Y shared his experiences from 3 different aspects, which are: the influence of Covid-19 in the job hunting process, his current situation and future plan and his attitudes towards the measures taken by the government. First of all, Y mentioned that she thought the most difficult parts are the application and interview stage. In terms of the information collection, Y mentioned that the cancellation of offline career seminars is the first challenge for him, which makes it hard to get information about new job information directly from the company because it’s relatively harder to get information online. Especially for international students, offline seminars are still the main way to get to know the companies but online information is difficult for them to collect because of the language barrier and familiarity of the Japanese career environment.

While for the interview process, the challenge mainly comes from the online group discussion. For example, some interviews will have group discussion with other candidates. But after moving to online interviews, the efficiency is pretty low. On the one hand, candidates can not feel the atmosphere of a face to face group discussion, on the other hand, it’s hard to get feedback from the company in time. What’s more, some unexpected problems such as bad internet connection also happened sometimes. And all those challenges actually influenced the mindset and behavior a lot.

　When talking about the current situation and future plan, Y said that she is trying to apply for jobs in the consulting industry, “I think the consulting industry was not influenced too much by Covid-19, but some other industries are announcing that they do not recruit 2021 graduates any more”. Also, many uncertainties make all candidates feel anxious and worried about the future everyday. For example, some companies change their decisions frequently, “they tell you to stop the recruiting process this month, but change their mind and start recruiting again next month. The reason is that there are so many uncertain factors that force the company’s decision all the time”. Y also mentioned: “it’s better to focus on Big companies, no matter Japanese or international companies, because they do not suffer too much loss from the Covid-19.

When we talked about Y’s thoughts about current measures taken by the government, Y thinks the government, company or public sector should do more to help students who are in a hard situation for job hunting during this specific period. “The online interview is still a problem for someone who feels difficult to access the internet”. Some students do not have an effective laptop or wi-fi connection in the home. So it would be better if the company can solve this problem for the candidate and that will make the online interview more convenient and fair.

　The second interviewee is W, who suffered from a cancellation of job offer during the Covid-19 period this year. His industry is the Hotel industry, which is apparently destroyed a lot by the economic loss of tourism. Therefore, W experienced the process of getting a job offer successfully and cancellation of the offer within 3 months. “I was informed that my offer was cancelled 15days before the starting date, the job offer was cancelled because of the covid-19, the hotel industry was greatly harmed by Covid-19 because there are no tourists at all. And there is also no compensation for the candidates”. When we talked about the thoughts and feelings of cancellation of offer, W said that she always felt nervous and desperate during that period. But she currently cannot do anything but keep searching for job opportunities. “My families always encourage me and give me confidence, even though I don’t know when the Covid-19 will end and when the tourism industry will recover from that”.

Regarding W’s attitudes towards government’s measures, W felt satisfactory about all the help from government, company and school. “I think the government already tried their best to do what they can do, even the company cancelled my job offer, they are still very kind and helped me a lot, I feel really grateful, and I understand this situation is not the fault of the company and government, they are also under a lot of pressure”. At the same time, W also proposed suggestions for the government, “provide subsidy to the enterprises, especially middle and small size companies. Also, providing temporary job positions to those unemployed people would be a big help”.

　Almost all the students who are in the process of job hunting are currently suffering from the influence of Covid-19 in this world, and this is an issue that all the people need to face instead of only yourself. So no matter what kind of difficulties you met in the job hunting process, don’t forget that you’re not alone. What’s more, to get a job offer successfully in this special period, we need to think and know more about the industries and positions of a job, and improving ourselves’ ability and skills will be the most beneficial way to help us find a satisfactory job. We could regard this period as a long vacation, it’s better to use this period to deeply analyze yourself and your future plan and do not forget: Stay safe.

Written by Anita Zitong Zhao