Archive for career
The Story (& the Song) Remain the Same
Posted by: | CommentsI think I'm on to something.
Not that this is entirely a surprise, but it's nice when the universe sends you positive feedback fast.
Today, the Greater Richmond Technology Council had an IT recruiter + candidate mixer called TechNOW.
Given the current landscape locally, with Qimonda closing its chip plant, Genworth dealing with a mortgage-market induced stock price meltdown, and Circuit City sinking like a dying whale, the job market is heavy on the candidate side.
Which is true in every market across the globe, I think.
What was great to see today @ TechNOW was the number of people actively engaged in discussion about consulting and project-based work, which is the non-job sort of money-for-value-given engagement I was getting at in yesterday's post.
I had the opportunity to do some individual coaching with a guy who's got a deep background in web-based process & usability IT. He's got two of the area's biggest employers on his resumé, with many years of service at both of them.
As we talked, it became clear to me, and I think to him, that he has mad skilz, and heavy experience, in that web-enabled business process development. Why not start branding himself as an expert in that area, using social media tools to engage with companies he'd like to work with?
Not work for, 'cause this is the Brave New No-Job World, baby.
I think he agreed with me.
That's why I do what I do – I live to help you tell your very best story. Today, I think I made a difference, which makes all the difference to me.
That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it…
Take this job and…
Posted by: | CommentsLong ago and far away, or maybe it was just 30 years ago, Johnny Paycheck recorded David Allan Coe’s “Take This Job And Shove It”, which became an anthem for the workin’ man. And woman.
Recent events have me wondering if the word “job” is on the verge of becoming, if not obsolete, at least vestigal in American English.
Detroit’s auto manufacturing plants are on the ropes. Circuit City is laying off 3,400 sales employees. Most days it feels like the entire workforce is teetering on the edge of redundancy – in both the Brit and Yank versions of English.
Back when Johnny recorded his big crossover hit, the idea of joining a company out of college and working your way up the ladder over the next 20-30 years was considered the norm.
The bad news is that the American workforce, like the military, is fighting the “last war” – in the workforce model, the belief that employment with one company for an entire career is still possible, or even desirable.
Go to school, get good grades, get a job.
How about pay attention in school, study business, identify a need, and fill it. You don’t have to be on the MBA track, this is a framework to follow even if you’re a stellar mechanic or plumber.
This isn’t new stuff – Robert Kiyosaki has made a fortune saying essentially the same thing. The education system in the US, and across the globe, needs to wake up to the fact that they’re still teaching to a 19th century societal model.
Just one woman’s opinion…
The Story on the Whole Jobs Thing (at Least AFAIC…)
Posted by: Mighty Casey | Comments (0)Jobs numbers have, to quote Forbes Magazine, fallen “off the table”.
Everyone knows at least a dozen people who are un-, or at least under, employed. And several more who are decidedly nervous about their continued employment.
Here’s what I’ve been thinking for quite a long time now: jobs are dead. Long live daily individual value delivery.
This is a multi-channel challenge. I can hear the benefits administrators of the world saying, “oh, HELL no!”
I can hear the education system, in this country and many others, protesting that they’re teaching to the test already (pumping out potential employees), and if they have to start teaching critical thinking again…well, things could get ugly.
I can hear the legions of job-holders around the world winding up their best roundhouse kick to knock my block off.
Change happens. If you’ve been on the employee train for a long time, trying to wrap your mind around not finding another job when you lose the one you’ve got can be downright scary. Just ask Paul Nawrocki, who lost his in February 2008 when the toy company he worked for went under.
Nawrocki has become both internet, and news-network, famous, thanks to his self-propelled mobile advertising (f/k/a “sandwich board”) – what a great opportunity to recast himself as a buzz marketer!
I’m kidding. But not really.
What times like the present call for is a change in thinking, for all of us.
The job may not be dead, but it is on life support. Start thinking like a consultant, a freelancer, a solopreneur, even if you toil alongside thousands of co-workers at a Fortune 100.
If you don’t bring it – “it”, in this instance, being that daily value delivery I mentioned above – the out-of-work sword will constantly dangle just above your cranium.
Don’t hug that job. It’s unlikely to hug you back for very long, and it’s highly likely to be unfaithful.
And don’t ever neglect your daily value delivery requirement.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it….