According to a recent survey, 91 per cent of millennials (born between 1977 and 1997) expect to stay in any given job for less than three years. For the more mature workers (born prior to 1977), the average is still just a little over four years. That means these young workers will have as many as 20 jobs over their working lives!
You will have another job in your lifetime. You aren’t at your final job (unless you’re counting the days until retirement and they number less than 1,000). You may not currently be looking for another job, and you may not even think you’ll ever need another one, but the odds are you will have another job.
There is also the disturbing possibility of another economic crash like the one in 2008. We hope it never happens again but if it does, you need to be prepared.
Always have your resume ready because you never know when you’ll need it. And if you do need to respond quickly to a job posting, that’s not the time to have to be looking up dates and old job titles. As you complete major projects and as you take on new jobs, take a moment to jot them down on your resume.
Recently I was speaking to a friend about her job. She was telling me about some problems she was having at work. She dreaded going into work each day. She thought she would have to look for another job. I told her to send me her resume and that I would have a look at it so she would be prepared to send it out if she needed to.
She was smart enough to have her resume ready to go, which proved lucky. She was telling another friend that she thought she was going to have to go job hunting and she wasn’t looking forward to it. Her friend happened to have a job opening in her company. My friend submitted her resume, had an interview the next day, and got the job. All in less than a week.
Would you be in a position to take advantage of that kind of situation?
Get truly LinkedIn
We all know that as professionals, we’re supposed to be on LinkedIn. You may be “on LinkedIn” but do you have a basic profile just so you can say, “I have a profile” or does it feature a professional looking photo (not a selfie), your current work credentials, and is it up to date? Have you gone that extra mile on LinkedIn, such as including a “Summary” of your work experience and some projects you’ve worked on? Do you connect with people on LinkedIn other than just your friends? How many groups do you follow—and have you ever interacted with those groups? When you get emails with job postings for your area, do you read them? Even if they aren’t for you, you might see a job that would be perfect for a friend.
Join the club
Do you belong to a professional association? They are particularly useful for finding out about new positions. As you know, many jobs never hit the open market because they’re filled through referred contacts. That’s a much easier and less expensive way for a company to fill a job than going through the entire process of advertising and hiring a candidate from a group of hundreds of unknowns.
Practice makes perfect
When was the last time you practiced your interview skills? Would you be able to ace an interview, if given the opportunity? These days, there are different types of interviews—telephone, Skype, panel, pre-recorded—and you need to make sure you can handle yourself in all of them.
Your career is your responsibility. If you find that your talents are not being used to their potential then keep your eyes open for an opportunity that can make full use of your talents.
Gone are the days when we have one employer for life. Gone are the days when people find a good job in their 20s and park themselves in it for their entire career. Gone are the days when your company is loyal to you.
Be loyal to yourself. Find a network, get your resume ready, practice your interview skills and keep your eyes open. You never know what will come your way.
