How Do New Employment Trends Affect the Job Seeker?

Talent acquisition has been very hot topic lately. A lot of my clients have been asking, “If unemployment’s so high, then where are all of the good people?” I have analyzed recent employment trends from the perspectives of both the solopreneur and the business owner. Today I would like to flip this topic and discuss it from the perspective of the job seeker. What is their responsibility? Experienced individuals seeking employment need to embrace the fact that there’s a new normal in the employment world. Forget 

about trading job A for job B. Trade job A for project B, C, D and E. Don’t try to trade one for the other, because that model is dead. It is important to recognize what you’ve done, where you’ve spent your time, and on what projects. What have you accomplished? Stop focusing on what you have done in one particular industry. Job seekers simply need to figure out how to position their resumes differently.

From the employer’s perspective, one of the issues with Baby-Boomers is the misconception that if you started your career in one industry, you should stay in that particular industry. Forget about the industry! Think about what you've done, instead of where you've done it. Think about all you have accomplished and how that can be transferred into other industries.

I recommend that all job seekers read or reread the book Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson, MD. That cheese has moved. That cheese is gone. It's never going to be in that same room again, so are you ‘Hem’ or are you ‘Haw?’ Are you going to figure out a way to go find it, or are you just going to keep sniffing where the cheese no longer is and hope it magically reappears? That is why this book is so good, because that cheese is not coming back. So if you're a job seeker with 20-30 years of experience trying to figure out what to do, realize there’s a new normal with new rules. Stop trying to trade job A for job B, and stop believing that you are “sentenced” to the industry that you've always been in. That’s simply not true. Your talents are needed out there, so figure out a way to leverage them.

The final point I would like to make -- and I'm obviously stealing this slogan from Nike -- is '’Just do it!” Go read Who Moved My Cheese and stop sniffing in the same places for a job. Realize that you have a resume that is valuable (by the way, if you don't think it is, then you are absolutely wrong). The market is strongly in need of your skill sets, so go out and find four or five projects. Here's how:

• Take the income you want, multiply that income by 1.3. Once you get that number divide by 5.
• Go find five businesses that will pay you what you want for the projects they need done.
• You'll be getting a 30% raise if you have five projects at any one time and you will be making more money than if you had simply traded job A for job B.

Where are all the good people? The good people are the job seekers that need to change their plan, and employers need to understand that there is talent ready and available in the marketplace.

Interested in learning more from Buddy? Be sure to sign up to receive our excellent, free eBook, "Experience Matters," in which Buddy explains how to succeed as a consultant in today's world.