ARE YOU EMPLOYABLE?

ARE YOU EMPLOYABLE?

(Published in Daily Independent Newspapers in 2008)

This is a question I like to ask participants who attend my Career Development Seminars or those who approach me for Mock Interviews.

Are you employable?

Not until several years ago, a simple unwritten contract glued the relationship between the employer and the employee. Employers offered loyalty; in return, the company offered security. Employees did what they were told, seldom questioning corporate policies, and rarely skipped from job to job. Companies more or less assured employees a job for life, issued a regular pay cheque and offered a predictable pension and a golden handshake upon retirement.

Noted leadership expert, John Paul Kotter called it, “a Psychological contract” – i.e. an implicit contract between an individual and the organization which specifies what each expects to give and receive from each other in a relationship.

Much of this however has changed. Within a few short years, the old taboos against job hopping have evaporated. It has almost become a badge of honour to have the stamp of multiple companies on one’s resume, with many employees becoming passive job seekers – having their eyes open for new opportunities.

I remember a couple of years ago, as a Consultant, while attempting to market some training programmes; I walked into the then, NNB Bank Plc, and was accosted by a very Senior Manager, who asked if I had come to headhunt him – this is not the only time this has happened.

What this change therefore portends is the end of any unwritten psychological contract between the employee and the average employer. Today’s career ladder seems to have fewer rungs, less ladder climbing, an increase in lateral movement between positions/companies; the average promotion usually entails a greater leap in scope and responsibility; with employees working laterally instead of vertically. The traditional view of what constitutes a career is no longer valid. Companies are beginning to have missing rungs on their ladders as corporations become flatter and leaner. The new career currency is learning through stretch assignments and great bosses not advancement.

Job security is no longer guaranteed. Many companies now hire temporary staff in order to avoid paying the high cost of health insurance and terminal benefits. Others outsource non-core staff and focus more on their core competencies. Management consultant, Tom Peters, said it so well when he said: “Security doesn’t attach to a job title, desk space or even a company name”. Your security has nothing to do with how well you did on your last performance appraisal, training, raises or even a commendation. Your security is tied to the company’s overall business performance. When the profits and market share begin to wane, the company may have to let you go. This kind of security is gone with the wind. Allow me to introduce you to the new kind of job security which is a security which lies in your “employability”.

Employability means to be so-o skilled, so-o useful; to constantly seek personal improvement and career development. It is now up to you, not your company or its training department or development plans to keep yourself employable and relevant to your industry. The driving force of a career must come from the individual, not the organization.  You must act as though you were an independent contractor with an eye on your market value and worth.

A job with lots of growth opportunities, mentoring, challenges and projects is what you must seek/create. You must develop loyalty to your Resume- building into your resume one achievement after another.

I really love what John Sculley, former Chief of Apple Computers, said in his autobiography, “Apple computers can’t promise you a job for life, not even for 5 or 10 years. Not even for a couple of years. What Apple can promise is that whether you are aboard for 3 months, 6 months, 6 years, or unlikely as it may be, 16 years, you will be constantly learning, constantly challenged. At the end, you will be demonstrably better positioned in the local or global market than you would have been had you not spent the time with us.”

“Your sense of job security lies in your employability."

This statement was corroborated also by Robert Waterman, Judith Waterman and Betsy Collard in their Harvard Business Review article titled, Towards a Career Resilient Workforce, in which they stated the opinion of some Management thinkers that, instead of the traditional focus on employment, the focus should now be on employability. In other words, we should forget about clinging desperately to one job, one company, or one career path. What matters now is having the competitive skills required to find work when we need it, wherever we can find it.

The job search process has thus been transformed from a single event in life to an on-going career process. You must therefore learn to position yourself for “long term employability”. Long term employability means no longer thinking of yourself as a mere job description/ statistic, but as a living brand, a living package of skills that can be transferred from one project/job to the next, it means keeping your job and interpersonal skills up to speed through self training and personal  development. It means developing and managing your “personal brand equity”; and learning how to prepare, update and market yourself.  It means positioning yourself as a unique brand in order to close the gap between your  desired market value and your perceived market value - this, my friend is how to toot your horn without blowing it!

Peter Drucker said:

“A brand with no clear vision has no future. If you do not plan the future you want, you will get the one that shows up”

“Those who do not create the future they want must endure the future they get.”

                                    Draper L. Kaufman, Jr

Friends, I am sure that it is your wish to increase the level of your employability. Keep reading this column as I begin the process of showing you how to make yourself employable.