Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter discusses the mistake you are making if you are looking for a stable job.
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I want to start off by sharing the story with you. I have been a professional recruiter for more than 40 years. I remember being fairly junior, like my 2nd or 3rd year in search and saying things to candidates like this, “Hi! I have this great company that wants to meet with you,” I would then describe the environment that the person would work in. I was only doing IT work at that time. But that’s not the point of the story.
I would describe the technical environment. How smart the hiring managers were. A whole bunch of things that I had been taught.
I would continue by saying, “it’s with a bank. If banks start to lay off it is time for all of us to leave the country.”
Well, banks have laid off, I haven’t left the country. Maybe you have. By the way, the name of that bank was Manufacturers Hanover Trust which, as a name, has long since disappeared from the banking circles in the United States. They were acquired by another name that is long since disappeared, Chemical Bank.
In the hunt for stability I want to point out, there is no such thing as stability it with corporations anymore. Things always change. After all, the stories about the Fortune 500 at the time of the Great Depression, including the company that manufactured buggy whips and RCA and other firms with antique technologies and businesses are legendary.
There is no stability. What you can do is keep your head up instead of your head down. Look at trends in your field. See how you can capitalize on being current or ahead of the curve so that in this way, you are attracted to other firms.
The reality is if you are at your firm for the next 10 years that is now an unlikely occurrence. You are statistically an aberration.
Why is that? Frankly, to an employer, you are disposable.
I wish it were different, but their behavior tells me that.
The people who make the promises to you, are often long gone by the time the promises need to be kept. The promotional opportunities and the salary increases – – trivial. You move from droll level I to drone level II all the way up to drone IV. Who cares!
What is important is your personal marketability. If you are able to stay with the technology of your time, if you are willing to stay with the trends of the time and not fall prey to the laziness or the financial inertia of your employer who tries to persuade you that doing this work that no one cares about in the market in general is so wonderful… There will come a day where you will learn. To the contrary.
All I’m going to tell you is stop looking for stability within your organization or from the next company. The only stability that you can create as millions of people learned during the last recession is with your skills, knowledge and network.
Get that again.
Your skills, knowledge and network.
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Do you really think employers are trying to help you?
You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell you as much as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.
The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.
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