There hasn’t been a job market this good in decades.
The unemployment rate across the U.S. remains at a 50-year low of 3.6%. And employers in the private sector continue creating new positions at a breakneck pace, stumping economists in the process.
That’s
good news for job seekers, who will face less competition on the hunt
for a new job and more room to demand better wages and benefits in the
process.
At the same time, the country’s economy is rapidly
changing. Automation and artificial-intelligence technology are expected
to cause up to 800 million people around the world to lose their jobs.
And although the unemployment rate is low, around 13 million Americans held multiple jobs as of 2014 in order to make ends meet, the most recent year for which data are available, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
And
more workers are eschewing traditional employment altogether thanks to
the rise of the gig economy and freelancing. Exact figures regarding how
many people are now opting for those alternative work arrangements are
hard to come by. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data suggest that only
5.9 million people were so-called “contingent workers,” in 2018 while a
survey from the Freelancers Union suggests the figure is closer to 60
million Americans.
The following are some of the top
recommendations from career experts on gifts you can give friends and
family to help them move up at work or strike out on their own in the
gig economy.
Help them improve their public speaking and other soft skills
In
a world where people’s job functions are increasingly being replaced
with technology, soft skills are taking on a renewed importance. This
includes everything from time management to creativity.
Especially
for people who do a lot of their work on a computer, one necessary
skill that they may need help with is public speaking. “I love the idea
of helping them with public speaking because it’s one of the biggest
fears people have,” said Amanda Augustine, TopResume’s resident career
expert and a certified professional career coach.
Many colleges
offer public-speaking classes. Another option is to purchase a
membership to Toastmasters International, the nonprofit that promotes
communication and speaking skills. A membership to Toastmasters
International costs $45 in annual dues and a $20 new member fee. The
organization provides members with a wide range of resources, as well as
classes for personalized attention.
A more unconventional route
than a public-speaking class can be to sign your friend or family member
up for an improv class at a local theater or comedy club, which can
teach a person to think better on their feet and to listen more
actively, said Maggie Mistal, a career-change coach. “That’s tremendous
training for an elevator pitch or a networking event,” she said.
Another
soft skill you can help a person out with is teamwork. Companies
including ZogSports sponsor leagues across the country for everything
from basketball and bowling to dodgeball and Ultimate Frisbee. Playing a
team sport can boost a person’s ability to collaborate, Augustine said,
and as an added bonus, those leagues offer great networking
opportunities.
Help them shore up their digital presence
The 21st-century equivalent of resume-writing services is having a coach overhaul a job seeker’s LinkedIn profile.
“LinkedIn
is searchable in a way that your resume never will be,” said EB
Sanders, a career coach based in San Francisco who specializes in
working with creative types. “We approach LinkedIn as a virtual
billboard for you. It’s much more of a living document.”
A
LinkedIn profile shouldn’t merely be a regurgitation of what’s on a
résumé, Sanders argued. A better LinkedIn profile infuses a person’s
personality and adds multimedia elements such as PDFs of case studies to
their profile.
Similarly, career coaches can do a deeper dive
into a person’s online presence to ensure that nothing unsavory comes up
when their name is put into a search engine. You could even gift them a
background check so they can nip any potential issues in the bud.
(Recently, a Michigan mother of five learned that there was a warrant out for her arrest for overdue library fees after her employer ran a background check on her when she was up for a promotion.)
Another
option is to gift someone web design services or a subscription to a
site such as SquareSpace, so they can build a sleek website to further
develop their online presence. Abby Kohut, a recruiting consultant based
in New York, suggested buying a person their name as a domain name so
no one else can use it. A dot-com domain through the web-hosting
platform GoDaddy starts at $11.99 for the first year.
Free up their time so they can focus on their career
Anyone
who has searched for a job knows that it can take a lot of time and
energy. So gifting someone something like housekeeping, meal prep or
laundry services can help free up their mental energy to devote
themselves more fully to the job search. “Anything you can do to save
someone time, I see as a benefit,” Lynn Berger, a career coach based in
New York, said.
For people who are self-employed, freeing up their
time can take the form of reducing the many tasks they need to manage.
TopResume’s Augustine suggested a great gift for the entrepreneur in
your life could be a virtual personal-assistance service.
“When I
was running my own business, what I hated more than anything else was
keeping up with the emails from people who wanted to schedule their
initial consultation, the follow-up and the calendar maintenance,”
Augustine said. Those tasks can easily be handled by a virtual
assistant, along with the even-more mundane tasks such as scheduling
doctor’s appointments.
If they are self-employed, get them tax help
Many
people who decide to leave the traditional workforce and start
freelancing do so to follow a passion or get more control and
flexibility in their work lives. But they may not consider the
particular challenges that stem from being a freelancer or gig worker.
“A
lot of people don’t realize all the back-end that goes into being
self-employed or a freelancer,” Sanders, the career coach, said.
As
a result, buying them tax software — or better yet, setting up an
appointment for them with an accountant — can help them get a firmer
grasp on their business and avoid any potential pitfalls that could
leave them owing Uncle Sam big time come April 15.
