How do you job hunt? And what should I do?

[Smallorveryfaraway]

Hi. Some context for my questions. I'm in the UK, have just entered a consultation period for redundancy, my entire team is affected. No roles are being kept and there's a recruitment freeze across the whole organisation so no internal moves are possible.
I haven't job hunted for 24 years, I've had a few internal moves so have progressed and just didn't feel I needed to look outside of the organisation. Last time I needed to job hunt you just did a CV, talked to a few agents, got interviewed and offers and picked the one you liked the idea of. It was pretty straightforward.

What does job hunting look like now, how do you go about it? I think the agencies I used to use are no longer in existence and am aware the job market is really tough at the moment. I'm early 50s and female, have a sneaking suspicion that might also make things trickier.

I'm pretty open to most types of work, office based. Public or private orgs. Quite attracted to civil service. I'm a good with software, have some project management experience, some risk and due diligence experience, people management experience, a lot of customer service experience. I'm a good all rounder tbh.
Also don't mind the idea of training for extra qualifications as long as I can earn decently at the same time, and not in a field that will largely be replaced by ai. The only thing I struggle with is mathematics, but I'm good with excel so it's never been a barrier. So I'm also seeing this as an opportunity to do something a bit different and potentially have a bit more of a career path as I've still got 20 years or more of working ahead of me.
I am the sole earner in my household so a good income and job prospects are important.

How do I job hunt and any ideas for potential careers please? Tia.

So sorry, it must be a huge shock after being somewhere so long. I hope something turns up pretty quickly for you.
Gov.U.K. Seem to do jobs these days, I don’t think there is such a thing as the job centre anymore.

https://findajob.dwp.gov.uk

Linkedin also do a job search page
https://uk.linkedin.com/jobs

good luck!

I feel like I'm an expert in this as I'm job hunting at 50 (nearly), after 15 years in the same organisation! I've learnt that it's all about CVs that get through ATS (AI applicant tracking systems) and LinkedIn. Networking too is key. Apparently 85% of jobs aren't advertised!

I joined Brave Starts, which is kind of online group career coaching. It's aimed at mid-life career pivoters and I've found it incredibly helpful. Really good for boosting my morale, helping me identify what I can (and want to) do. It's pretty reasonable (about £80 a year I think) and has been well worth it. I've also found the ivee app/ website really useful. It was originally geared towards women returners, but now covers pivoting too. I found their (free) CV workshop invaluable and I'm doing their free 3-week 'bootcamp' at the moment and an upcoming LinkedIn session. I also signed up for a couple of 1-1 sessions with a career coach who specialises in the sector I used to work in.

Those three things have helped me hugely. I was in a massive rut about 3 weeks ago and feeling really despondent about it all (the job market is pretty dire at the moment), but now I'm feeling much more positive.

Good luck!

@FlappicusSmith this is so useful, thank you. Best of luck to you too!

Following 👀

I got chatgpt to review and edit my CV; then i reviewed again. I have been using Linkedin, lots of jobs advertised there. Also contacts, networking

Hope you don't mind, just place marking to read later.

What field do you work in?

It's called Jobcentre Plus. What makes you say it doesn't exist anymore?

If you haven’t got a LinkedIn profile you need to create one. Add the ‘open to work’ banner onto your profile and all the recruiters will come to you.

If you’re concerned about your age (which you really shouldn’t be as it’s a protected characteristic) go and look at the Restless job board which is specifically for the over 50s.

Any company worth their salt will have optimised their job site within an inch of its life, so Google is your friend. Just type in what you want to do and where… the jobs will show.

Please don’t use chatGPT to rewrite your CV too much as recruiters will spot and reject them a mile off. Do absolutely use it to put strong words into your existing CV and a few buzz words for your industry

after 20 years then redundancy and trying to find a new role, I was surprised at how important LinkedIn is, it's how I got my latest role 5 years ago

it annoys me how it’s turning into Facebook and other platforms with stupid posts but it is still powerful. It's how the big firm I work for use to fill roles rather than recruiting firms

If you work this out tell me. I can’t put that I’m looking for worn in LinkedIn as I’m still in a job. I’m just not very happy. But I can’t afford to risk it until I’ve found something else.

I’m tempted to get my CV checked by a pro in the new year as I’m getting nowhere fast.

Please don’t use chatGPT to rewrite your CV too much as recruiters will spot and reject them a mile off.

The recruiters who use AI to sort through CVs and send auto rejection letters while the job hunter's finger is barely off the 'send' button?

The whole process is so dehumanising.

Worth getting your CV reviewed, some sites will do it as part of a free trial.

Most interviews will be online now, often the whole sequence. The upside of this is you can stick notes all over the wall behind your screen; I've found that great.

I'm currently working as a bid writer - there's a lot of demand for it and it's quite age agnostic, I pivoted to it aged 46. If you have business writing skills at all it's worth a shot and most roles will be willing to be remote or hybrid and the pay is decent at larger employers.

I have often thought about this over the years but never sure how to get into it. Did you do a course or something or did you have demonstrable business writing skills beforehand? So many of those sorts of jobs I feel I would be good at and have the skills for, but feel like it is one of those that you move into within a company and are then can move to other jobs in it.

Also, how protected do you think it is from AI? Am guessing most writing jobs are under threat, but perhaps won't be completely taken over by as I'm guessing there is a lot of human thought that goes into it

I was in editorial for 20 years, the last 10 years of that in a built environment journal, so I had decent knowledge of facilties management and construction, which is where quite a lot of bid writing happens. Members of our team have been various roles in the past including teachers and sales or marketing jobs.

We are starting to use AI quite a lot - I don't think it will replace us though it may slightly cut the number of people needed as it speeds up the process. But I think it will always need human insight. I am studying a 12 month AI qualification in my current role and I suspect that next year I will start getting approaches on LinkedIn for new types of related Ai/content roles that will be created by demand.

Have a look on glassdoor. Loads of jobs listed on there, you need to register and they send you links everyday. Tailor what you are looking for like job titles, area etc. I always look on the actual company site as well for the role but effectively they scrape job listings and publish them. Or indeed or total jobs might be good for local stuff. Be mindful you don’t undersell yourself in term of salary. I bet you are underpaid as you have been there for so long. Alternatively think about local firms you think might have a similar role and check them out - even a speculative letter/ email might be good?