Having a successful career – or even a career for that matter – is not easy for most. 

There’s a lot of bad information out there. Many so-called “experts”, guiding you. So many opinions…

But in practice, most of that guidance is outdated. There’s far too much competition, far too few good jobs, high-value jobs are never advertised to the public… And worst of all, that’s the norm in a decent job market!

In a tough job market, like the one we are about to enter now, the outlook is much more grim. So much so that anywhere between 20 to 30% of professionals (that’s being conservative) may have to remain unemployed, settle into underemployment, or simply make due with unfulfilling work and sad wages.

The bad news is: This job market will likely get worse, and these problems will manifest themselves in more ways than one.

But the good news is: You don’t have to care!

In fact, a bad job market can easily become your best friend, differentiating and distinguishing you from the masses.

Generally speaking, in this coming lousy job market, there appears to be a proliferation of corner office jobs that can be had – even from the comfort of your own home – thanks to their “Virtual Work Revolution” and the “Great Resignation”.

You no longer have to endure boring interviews in offices, or fly to the other side of the country in order to be seen in person.

More importantly, you no longer have to get a job in your area…  The entire country, and even the entire world, is open to you! And it’s no longer open like it was open in the early 2000s where you had to compete with low-wage ”professionals” from third world countries for what are called algorithmic jobs that could be easily automated away.

Today, great jobs can be had, after a few video calls and your FedEx’ed signature. And it’s happening even faster than I predicted. (One of my students recently got an executive job at Google, in less than a week, from the comfort of his own home. He lives in the East Coast and works in the West!)

And I’ll tell you the 3 easy things that I told him that he should do at the start of his job search, to get a bad job market working for you.

(Sidenote: Yes, of course, “easy thing” is a cheesy form of expression, but it’s intentional. You’ll see…)

Easy Thing #1 – You MUST have a reliable, proven, and efficient way of getting around HR gatekeepers. People are spending a lot more time online, and the volume of job applications are increasing. HR was bad enough before all this noise. Without this, going through HR is like betting your retirement on a lottery. But with this in place, you never wonder where your next interview is coming from. (Learn the Warm Application Process or read The Ultimate Guide to learn how to do this). 

Easy Thing #2 – You MUST get access to the hidden job market. The hidden job market is a term used to describe where 80% of good jobs, and almost the entirety of high-value jobs are advertised. More often than not, when a job “falls” to the public boards or listings, the hiring manager usually already has someone in mind. You want to be that person in mind, where posting a job becomes a formality, and you getting the job becomes easy.

Easy Thing #3 – You MUST negotiate from a position of “leverage”, and maximise your salary, increasing it beyond what you thought were possible or even reasonable. This becomes trivial when you crack the supply/demand code for a given position and become not a contender, but the ONLY OPTION for the job you are after.

(Another sidenote: With 2022 inflation in mind, what you think of as unreasonable is not unreasonable. Add about another 30% to it)

I’m sure you’ll agree with me that having these three ingredients in place (i.e. getting around HR, hidden job market, position of leverage), you’d easily turn your home office into a corner office, make more money and have less stress, and never be worried about losing a job, because you could easily get another when you wanted.

So, my question is, what’s stopping you?

If I were to make a guess, just like everyone else who doesn’t utilise these three ingredients, what’s stopping you is that you don’t actually know how to get around HR, how get access to high-value jobs, and how negotiate from a position of strength and leverage.

These are, what we call in the “business” of “business” career skills.

And maybe, just maybe, it is finally time that you start learning these key career skills so that you can, perhaps even in just a few days time, re-invent your future and get the career you truly deserve.

Be more! You are worth it.