Toronto career coach offers advice for people looking for work amid pandemic

More than a million jobs lost in Ontario Hundreds of thousands of recently laid off workers struggle to find work amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

TORONTO — A Toronto career coach is encouraging people looking for a job during the pandemic to persevere and continue to search out companies that are hiring.

Since the pandemic seriously hit in March, about three million jobs have been lost in Canada due to the health crisis.

Peter Caven, who is the managing director of Launched Careers, said that while COVID-19 has made it challenging to find work, one of the most important things job seekers can do is to not give up.

“Don’t quit,” Caven told CTV News Toronto on Tuesday. “The worst thing that can happen is you get ignored. The best thing that can happen is you get a job.”

Caven said he has been counselling young professionals for 20 years. He said that although there’s no question, we’re entering a slower economy, there are jobs out there especially in logistics, technology and online purchasing.

Some of the companies he listed included UPS, Amazon, Google and Shopify.

Caven said that competition is intense and it’s important to have a top notch resume and LinkedIn profile and to step up the networking game.

“Networking is still the key to finding a job. It’s different than it was before but 80 per cent of the jobs that get filled never see the light of day,” he said.

‘Not a lot of postings’

Lorena Cosimo is an office manager at a strategic planning and events firm. When the pandemic hit in March, business dropped.

Cosimo said she got laid off and is looking for work in June.

“I have connected with a couple of recruiters but there are just not a lot of postings. Every day, I check and maybe there’s one new positing,” she said.

Cosimo said typically a company only needs one office manager, which has added some difficulty to her search, but she has been networking and staying positive.

“I have a lot of experience so there’s definitely a lot of knowledge I could put to good use for a company,” she said.

“I sort of know that there’s not going to be a lot out there. I already have it in my head it may take me a few months, possibly the summer.”

For now, she’s taking online courses and doing photography, until she ideally lands something in her field.