What Now? Making Conscious Career Choices
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
It has been a few years since the recession ended; from an employment perspective, if you have a college degree, you can find work. That obviously wasn’t the case from 2008 – 2010 when the global economy cratered and recent grads were forced to move home.
If your career survived the global collapse without interruption, you are certainly lucky. 8 million people in the United States lost their jobs during that time plus many millions more overseas did, too.
If you were a college graduate who did not find work during that period, your income took a lifetime hit the same as people who retired early in the recession. You may know some of those people as greeters at WalMart or cashiers at a neighborhood supermarket.
Something that you need to understand is that wages have not recovered since that time. I would argue that wages have been stagnant for 2 decades with the only thing having kept many families afloat is the rise of the two income family. As a headhunter, I have not seen salaries increase much for many many years and consulting rates for your typical consultant or temp haven’t changed much either.
According to The Federal Reserve Bank, “Families in the middle to upper-middle parts (between the 40th and 90th percentiles) of the income distribution saw little change in average real incomes between 2010 and 2013 and thus have failed to recover the losses experienced between 2007 and 2010. Only families at the very top of the income distribution saw widespread income gains between 2010 and 2013, although mean and median incomes were still below 2007 levels.” (Federal Reserve Bulletin, Volume 100 No. 4, September 2014)
According to The Fed, what has kept the economy going has been the increase in home prices and stock prices.
So it looks like that 3% raise won’t take care of you financially.
And if the economy slips into recession as it always does, what will happen to your finances?
Abdicating responsibility for your career to an organization that sees you as little more than “a human resource”( not to be confused with “natural resource”) that can be objectified and mined is a mistake. After all, despite all the laughter around some people’s desks, or the Christmas party every year, you are a resource to them and nothing more.
And with the wealth of information available to firms online, it should not be surprising that the cost of labor for employers has been pretty close to static.
So what can you do?
What can you do to find an organization that will treat you like a human being and not a commodity that can be traded (or dismissed)?
The first thing is to put yourself in the position to be found on LinkedIn, on the web, by “talent acquisitions (semi-) professionals (yes, that was intended sarcasm). Redo your profile every three months. Blog on LinkedIn like I do.
Work in IT? Contribute on GitHub and StackOverflow.
How about putting your portfolio online?
Become more active in trade groups.
Go to Meetups.
Start building relationships with and making friends with people in leadership.
Stretch yourself.
Write down at least 5 ideas each day.
Set goals for yourself and find someone to support you with achieving your goals even if you have to pay them.
The big thing is to change your attitude from a subservient employee to someone who has choices and work to overcome your resistance to looking out for yourself and taking action. After all, the job market is good now. It has been seven years since the economic implosion. You dohave choices.
Make your own decisions instead of leaving them to others who don’t have your interests in their mind when they make them.
© The Big Game Hunter, Inc. Asheville, NC 2015
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a career and leadership coach who worked as a recruiter for more than 40 years. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with more than 3000 episodes and his newest show, “No BS Coaching Advice.” He is a member of The Forbes Coaches Council. “No BS JobSearch Advice Radio” was recently named a Top 10 podcast for job search. JobSearchTV.com was also recently named a Top 10 YouTube channel for job search.
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