Plug your ears if someone tells you there are no jobs to be had.
While it’s true that employment hasn’t rebounded from when the pandemic began, “there are sectors that have bucked the trend,” according to Rhea Moss, director of data insights and customer intelligence at iCIMS, a recruitment platform.
Not only that, but in some areas, the demand for talent will continue to grow, specifically in the New York City metropolitan region, according to the ManpowerGroup. Its conclusion is based on data from multiple platforms, including ManpowerGroup’s Recruitment Difficulty Index, ManpowerGroup Solutions TAPFIN IntelliReach platform, Gartner TalentNeuron and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In fact, the New York market will be one of the hottest in the country, according to Jay Denton, senior vice president of business intelligence and chief innovation officer of ThinkWhy, a software platform that bridges the gap between market analysis and salary answers.
“New York City was one of the most severely impacted locations in 2020 [in terms of layoffs], so it will likely see some of the biggest hiring volumes in 2021,” said Denton.
What’s different this year is that some of the job titles you’ve been used to plugging into sites like Indeed or LinkedIn won’t generate many hits, but there are other positions you probably qualify for whose job titles you have never even heard of.
“Go to individual employer Web sites and read job descriptions,” said Mark Kindy, a recruiting manager at Mondo recruitment firm in Midtown. “Or, work with a recruiter.”
All of that said, here’s where the jobs are now and in the near future:
Think pandemic recovery
Companies like CVS, Walgreens and others are hiring more than 50,000 workers nationwide to help with immunization. And while this includes doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, armies of pharmacy technicians will also be hired to help.
In some cases, employers will even cover training costs. Jobs for contact tracers, health monitors, temperature takers and workplace re-designers are now booming.
While the demand for some of these workers might not be long term, these jobs often include good health benefits, access to training for other roles and an opportunity to grow.
CVS, which also owns insurance company Aetna, has thousands of jobs open within a 40-mile radius of the city. According to the company, there’s a need for store managers, front of store staff, cashiers, RX drivers and distribution center staff. Additionally, they have roles open for digital (UX/UI) designers, developers, architects and programmers; data analysis; data scientists and data engineers.
NYC startups need more than geeks
Take a look at startup job sites like BuiltInNYC.com and you’ll see opportunities abound. While there are plenty of tech jobs, these young firms are also searching for creatives to work on branding, business development and talent acquisition, human resources, customer experience and more. (Hint: Use keywords like “talent” and “people” to find these jobs.)
Mortgage company Better.com, located in the World Trade Center but working remotely for now, plans to continue hiring vigorously. “We have 170-plus starting virtually in January already,” said Arthur Matuszewski, VP of talent at Better.com. “And we expect total [new hires] in Q1 to be 300 or so in NYC.”
Excellent interpersonal and customer service skills and enthusiasm are the primary qualifiers.
Sales and business development is hot
In December, there were more than 16,500 business development, account management and sales opportunities listed in the New York area on Indeed.com. They ranged from early career client/customer service and sales support roles at Goldman Sachs, to account executives at Google, to multicultural salespeople for the Times of India. Others hiring revenue generators include software companies like Salesforce, SAP, Snapchat and Tableau.
And, of course, New York has finance jobs. “Wall Street is booming,” said Robert Graber, CEO of WallStJobs.com.
While some open jobs require sales experience and industry licenses, others do not. “Service workers — even waiters who have good personalities and are engaging — can make the transition,” he said. Many sales roles pay 100 percent commission, and individuals who would not have considered that arrangement in the past might do so now. “It could lead to a career that pays extremely well,” Graber said.
Technologists wanted
Tech jobs in the city abound “in spite of the pandemic,” according to Jed Kolko, chief economist at Indeed.com. In fact, more opportunities will continue to emerge because COVID has accelerated the need to move data, transactions and analytics to the cloud.
There were more than 5,000 tech openings within 20 miles of New York City in December and there isn’t a slowdown in sight. Vacancies for software developers, development/operational engineers, machine learning experts and data engineers are plentiful.
Worth noting, too, is that whatever you’ve heard about tech companies moving out of the city, Amazon isn’t one of them.
“Access to a diverse talent pool remains the most important factor,” said Ardine Williams, vice president of workforce development at Amazon. “We’ve announced plans to create 2,000 new corporate and tech roles over the coming years in Manhattan.”
The company has also announced plans to train 29 million people around the globe. One of the larger training centers is in Newark, NJ.
Consider job titles you’ve never heard of
Aetna has a job title of “population health management facilitator” available, implementing their health-management suite of products. It requires one to three years of work experience, an associate’s degree and knowledge of Microsoft Office and Excel.
There’s also a call for employee health chat specialists at Zero Hour Health in Stamford, Conn. You’ll communicate directly with employees who are experiencing symptoms.
If you’d rather go to the dogs, consider becoming a puppy concierge. This job at PuppySpot in Jersey City helps customers find a pooch through a reputable source. A college degree or two-plus years of experience in a high-volume sales environment is required.