Your Industry is Crippled and is Time to Make a Career Pivot

Time to Make a Career Pivot

Covid-19 has left many industries crippled and it is likely time to make a career pivot. This probably means repositioning your career for a new industry or starting your own business.

What keeps you from moving on?

Inertia. Inertia is a dangerous thing.  You might be saying:

• Been here too long to just leave.
• I am too valuable to let go.
• Need to wait for the next package to come along.

Or, are you just too comfortable in your position, and to move on would be a lot of work?

Either reason is dangerous. In most cases, you probably have not yet formulated a Plan B.

My Industry is Safe

So you think your industry is safe and immune from this pandemic.

Think again.

Many have thought that the technology sector is entirely immune. Check out this article – Technologists Anxious About Layoffs at Amazon, Cisco, Other Big Firms.  Cisco has laid off over 3,500 employees since the pandemic started.

The digital economy has been around for more than a decade but COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption by both corporations and individuals. Our habits on how we search for products, the type of products we search for them, and how we purchase products has changed.

I have seen it first hand.

Last year was the first year that search traffic declined to the Career Pivot website in 9 years and it declined significantly. This was likely due to the fact that close to 5 million baby boomers left the workforce and have either retired or are thinking they will wait this out.

No industry is safe from the disruption that COVID-19 has created in the economy.

This is not the time to get complacent and let inertia set in.

Follow the Money

For any industry or company, you need to follow the money. Who do they buy products and services from? Who are their customers?

A classical example of this played out this year with the bankruptcy of Hertz. It is now a zombie company and will probably never fully recover.

When we stopped flying, we also largely stopped renting cars. Hertz had huge loans on their fleet of cars and when the pandemic hit, the value of their fleet dropped significantly. The financier made a $500 Million margin call and Hertz declared bankruptcy. Hertz is now selling their low mileage cars on the used car market depressing prices of used cars.

Hertz and other major fleet auto purchasers buy approximately 20-25% of all new cars. This has an impact on the major auto manufacturers. This, therefore, affects downstream parts and service providers to the auto industry.

Due to the fact that we are not flying, a machine shop supplying prototype parts to General Motors in Dayton, Ohio could be feeling the effect on their business.

Drug Cartels Have Been Effected

I live just outside of Guadalajara, Mexico in a beautiful enclave of Ajijic. The Mexican drug cartels have had their supply chains disrupted. Since the start of the pandemic, global shipping has been disrupted as many countries are now hoarding shipping containers. Therefore, the volume of containers being shipped from China around the world, including Mexico, has declined significantly.

This has allowed custom officials to spend more time searching and processing containers. It is now much more difficult for the drug cartels to get the chemicals they need from China to make fentanyl.

At the same time, the US/Mexican border is closed to all but essential travel. This has drastically reduced the volume of traffic that crosses the border. Most of the drugs crossing the border into the US is done with commercial trucks.

The drug cartels have had to do 2 things:

• Find new ways to transport drugs into the US
• Diversify their revenue streams

Since 2019, the cartels have been using the sewers of Nogales Mexico to transport drugs into Arizona. At the same time, the cartels have gotten into the avocado business in much of central Mexico.

Even illegal businesses have been affected.

Is Now the Time to Make a Career Pivot?

If you determine that you are vulnerable now is the time to create a Plan B. I suggest you either look to start your own business or shift industries.

I wrote about all of the myriads of resources available to you in the post, “Starting Your Own Business? What is Stopping You?“. You would not be alone in that there has been an explosion of business formation applications in 2020 (census.gov).

I also published a couple of posts on shifting industries:

• 5 Steps for Using Transferable Skills to Move to a New Industry
• 5 Reliable Steps to Rebrand Your Personal Brand in a New industry

Both of these Career Pivots will take time but now is the time to first determine if your industry is truly in trouble and then take action.

What is Stopping You?

We have many people in the Career Pivot Membership community who are on the journey to making a career pivot. Listen to Sarah Harford’s story of becoming a medical device virtual trainer. This type of position did not even exist prior to the pandemic.

Sarah was able to persevere through the support of the many members of our community.

Whether you join my community or find another you will likely not do this alone.

What is stopping you and what will it take to take a step forward?

Marc Miller  

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