Corona Virus Job Searching in South Africa

Corona Covid-19 Virus and your job search, what now?

Your Job search and the Corona Covid-19 Virus, What now?

On the 15th March 2020, South Africa’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa has declared a national state of emergency due to the Corona Covid-19 Virus. The President has announced urgent and drastic measures to curb the Corona virus outbreak in South Africa. These include but are not limited to: 

• All non-essential domestic travel by air, rail, taxis and buses is discouraged.
• Gatherings of more than 100 people are prohibited. Should small gatherings be unavoidable, organizers are required to establish stringent controls to reduce the risk of infection. 
• Schools are scheduled for closure from the 18th March until after the Easter weekend.
• Contact with others should be limited. 

These above measures are not the only measures announced, our main concern is how does the outbreak of the Corona virus affect your job search? Members of the public use taxis to and from interviews and are surrounded by other people. What do you do now and how do you limit contact with others?

The current measures that have been put in place will see a change in the manner that the employment sector operates for a while at least. We will surely see more remote working, more video-based interviewing and a shift to virtual on-boarding of new staff members. Inevitably the hiring process will be slowed down considerably.

Keep searching

Your search efforts may become a bit harder than previously, it is vital to continue your job search and to remain consistent. Business needs to continue and so should you. Don’t stop your job search because you think that no one will be hiring. Companies will implement hiring plans around the corona virus and will continue to hire.

Video Interviewing

Be prepared for video and online video interviews. Interviews will most likely change during this phase in an attempt to reduce contact with others and due to this, job seekers need to ensure that they have alternative means of communicating with potential employers. The use of video communication tools such as Zoom, Skype and WhatsApp video is likely to be increased over the next few weeks.

Be prepared for remote working

Joining a new company during the Corona period will be interesting times. Organizations will most likely lean more to virtual on-boarding and remote working until the country has been given the all-clear to return to life as normal.

All of the above is far easier said than done. We need to continue job searching and shift our mindsets and become creative in the way that we approach the job sector in these challenging times. 

At Kontak Recruitment we have pre-empted the measures companies would need to put in place and all our staff are working remotely and communicating with clients and candidates via video communication tools. We are also having discussions with clients as to how we will be changing interviews and on-boarding procedures while still ensuring that top caliber candidates are hired and able to work remotely if required.