But selecting an insurance plan is different. This COVID -19 pandemic and the recession accompanying it will forever change the workplace as we now know it. They were getting laid off at the same time. Don’t focus on the salary.”For Gifford, who has always taken a fairly intentional view of his career, the time had come to seek a mentor who would take him under his wings. The lockdown saw household spending plunge … Because many people aren’t used to obtaining this information using web or mobile devices, the choice architecture became important in earning confidence and trust in the process.
“I remember getting that phone call and being like, ‘Oh shit, what do I do now?’”In the end, things worked out well for Gifford. Youre going to have to find meaning in the skills that you know.”With more teams working remotely and scrambling to recreate co-located design sessions from their homes, online collaboration and video conferencing platforms present an opportunity, according to Gifford, for thoughtful designers to set themselves apart.But the first thing to do in such an extraordinary time, Gifford said, whether you’ve been laid off or are seeking to accelerate your career, is simply to stop and take a breath.t seen something like this in a hundred years, right?” he said.
In eight months, he “learned probably more than I would have working two years somewhere else.”Less than a year later, he earned an MBA, opening a path for him to advance to a senior manager role at the digital healthcare consulting firm Medullan. For one thing, Gifford said, you never know which early professional experience might be the engine to drive your career.One might not presume, for instance, that studying art and psychology in college would lead naturally to a role as a manager of experience design, but it turns out the progression is hardly far-fetched — particularly at a company like Mad*Pow where the design approach is grounded in motivational psychology and decidedly academic.Recently, for example, Gifford was working on a product to provide insurance quotes.
Staying connected to people.s an isolation factor, right?” Gifford said. By parsing findings from decades of empirical research from psychologists and behavioral scientists, he was able to inform decisions about how many choices to provide users and when to provide them.“By parsing findings from decades of empirical research from psychologists and behavioral scientists, he was able to inform decisions about how many choices to provide users and when to provide them.”An abundance of choices might be OK, Gifford explained, in something like buying shoes, where a customer likely has a clear picture of what they want ahead of time and where the options are visual. Published: 9 minutes ago. He started to teach himself Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, and learned how to code in HTML.“And what we actually found was there were a lot of people in the same shoes. While university degrees will continue to be mandatory in licensed professional fields such as law, medicine, engineering, and education, they are becoming less important to employers who rely on proven skills and accomplishments in key areas when making hiring decisions.And frankly, devoting four years pursuing an academic degree not necessarily well suited to current needs in the workplace is not time well-spent during what are the most formative years in young people’s lives.The advantages of study at alternative post-secondary educational establishments, such as community colleges, will also become more interesting. “Digital health is going to be huge, anything contactless, delivery services. Look for emerging niches, and fill the gaps in your skill set. He can be reached at alanwalter@eastlink.ca. “Are there opportunities for you to start your own thing or to consult around a certain topic that's going to be more in demand?”If optimism and risk-taking are the linchpins of a good rebound strategy, as his story suggests, there’s a place for prudence too.Gifford said Small Sparrow Design was a good gig, for awhile — they built a small, niche client base. “But there are alternative paths that might be as exciting.”For early stage and mid-level professionals, that means there are unfulfilled niches related to digital design and product development. My last posts about building in a recession (#2and #3) probably sounded a little extreme, but I really believe there’sa similar model that ought to be available to anyone. June 9, 2020 .