How aviation companies can recover from the pandemic

COVID-19 is challenging businesses across the globe, particularly the airline industry. In times of crisis, staying positive can be difficult, particularly if you’re seeing a reduction in business day-to-day. While times are tough, what makes a great business is how you persevere in difficult situations.

By being proactive now, you can ensure your business is in a more secure position to see out the next couple of months and recover faster until the market ramps up again. This is also the same for recruitment - you may not have the need right now, but if you’re certain that you will once normal business resumes, there are things you can do now, to ensure you’re in a better position later.

Below, we provide some key advice on what to do now for your business to recover quickly post COVID-19.

Consider your customers first

This is an understandably stressful time for any business at the moment, particularly in aviation, but don’t let your priorities take over. Think strategically about how the pandemic affects your customers and make it your number one task to help them. Adjust your marketing around how to address these specific challenges.

Reposition your products and services to be helpful and address the specific pain points your customers are battling. Just a couple of the ways in which Aviation Job Search has readjusted our business is by offering solutions for recruiters to stockpile relevant CVs so that they can come back to them when they are ready to begin recruiting operations. We can also offer virtual solutions for businesses who are looking to use virtual events or webinars etc. during the pandemic, through our official distributor, Loop Expo.

Embrace new channels

How can you adapt your business to reach people right now? If you don’t usually make use of your social media channels, now might be the perfect time to kick-start a conversation, creating opportunities to serve your market via alternative channels. People will still need your services in the future, so don’t count any online channels out to market your business. Business is still happening, but more of it may simply need to be online.

Support those businesses who are in need

While it won’t directly affect your business, there are a number of businesses in full operation right now trying to tackle the pandemic. And if as a country we come together to support them, we can join the fight in battling coronavirus. So if you have the time, join the battle and set up a JustGiving or Virgin Money page, for example, and set your business a challenge for everyone to contribute to. From a marketing perspective it’s a great opportunity to show that you’re not just about making money for yourselves. Seeing the bigger picture will impress your customers and give you something else to chat to them about other than buying your products/services.

Focus on long term plans

While this situation is understandably driving more cancellations, it’s important to continue nurturing your prospects with the long term goals in mind. Look after your customers to maintain your business in the later months.

Prepare for the surge in demand

Economic recovery could be quicker than you think, if we can take anything from watching China over the last few weeks. The airline industry will thrive again, so be aware that if you cut back too far today, you might not be in a position to capitalise on the post-crisis recovery when the storm blows over. Putting steps in place to be positioned for a bigger success tomorrow is essential. Adapt and embrace any opportunities and you’ll come back stronger than you thought.

Recovering your recruitment strategy

In many ways, you can apply the above points to managing your recruitment strategy too:

• Consider your candidates and how they feel: If you were in the middle of recruiting for a role and have now had to cancel the process, don’t let your shortlist of well searched for candidates get away. Reschedule a date for the future and adapt if necessary, depending on government guidelines - you might even wish to proceed with interviews but opt for a video interview instead. If you can’t accommodate this, keep in touch with the candidates you wanted to interview. If you wait too long to begin recruiting for your role again, you might well lose out on top talent.
• Embrace new channels: Use your social media channels to post messages about your recruitment processes e.g. that you’ve stopped hiring, that you’ll be looking to rehire again the coming months, and what roles you’ll be looking to fill in which locations.
• Focus on long term plans: The long term goals matter - you don’t want to resume normal business without the essential employees - so if you have a role you’re desperate to fill once the lockdown ends, prepare now to hit the ground running later. A hot tip from us, if you’re signed up with us, post a job advert and leave it running for 3 months with our latest offer, so you can stockpile CVs for the role.
• Prepare for the surge: If you’re not ready to post a job advert just yet, make use of our CV Discovery tool to stockpile your CVs instead. If you have an idea of which jobs you’ll be looking to fill, our advanced CV Discovery tool is handy for identifying relevant CVs without you having to do much at all.