Job Security vs. Employability

August 2, 2009 | Posted by JO

“I want job security.”

I hear this a lot, and even before the economy went into the tank. And no one generation has the market cornered on wanting job security. I hear the “s-word” from students I teach at college and from employees of all types. Job security sounds good…lifetime employment, a comfy pension, retiree medical, and if I work extra hard, promotion into the executive ranks…sweet..no wait. That’s all gets scrapped when the company goes under or bought out. Even if you and I are lucky enough to be at the helm of a sturdy ship, our skills are constantly at risk of being replaced with automation or outsourced entirely. Ug.

So you are playing the odds when you chase job security. Eventually, you will leave your job – and more often these days, not of your own choosing. Job security is important, it can bring you some measure of prosperity, but it’s also become more elusive.

There are all manner of pitfalls to watch out for: downsizing, outsourcing, bankruptcy, buyouts, bailouts, and bad management, to name a few. Still, we suck it up, day after day, show up for work, do a great job, and try not to become hot twitchy blobs of paranoid jelly. The days of setting a singular path in your early twenties and sticking with it for decades are long gone. I recently read that if you are under 30 right now, the chance of you being laid off at some point in your career is close to 60% – that is a downright slap to old-school job security.

There has to be an alternative mindset. I believe that part of that mindset, is focusing on “employability,” instead of job security.

dependent on others for "job security" and benefits. Slow to change.

This worker thinks she has job security.

Quickly defined, employability is developing an extremely marketable skillset, and continually trying to improve it. It is also developing your professional flexibility. And at its absolute core…it is you taking action, not waiting for someone else to guide you.

For me, one of the paths to get there has been working on a career plan that can be changed as often as I like. The plan builds on skills to extend my success in my chosen profession. It also is focused on building on my innate strengths.

You need a career plan that allows you to pick-up new things along the journey – this builds your skill flexibility. In my profession, human resources, having people skills is paramount. However having a top-notch technology skillset puts me in very rare company. There are probably similiar opportunities in your career field. We als need a plan that is multi-purpose as well; it should be built with a “plan b” in mind. But the most important thing is that on my career plan, I make a commitment to work on it, now and in the future.

I try to update my career plan every 2-3 years. This keeps me constantly on the look-out for opportunities to expand or enhance my skills, some of which my employer will pay for in the meantime. With each new skill I acquire, I build more marketability and versatility in myself. My ability to transfer my skills is much stronger than my colleagues who have maybe being doing the same thing, coasting on cruise control for many, many years.

Highly-employable worker.

So I encourage you to make a commitment to yourself now that you will always spend a little time constantly learning..every week and every month. A good place to look for high-leverage skills are places where others see a problem and nobody else wants to tackle it. If your co-workers are avoiding some issue like the plague, that could be a strong signal of where to go looking for problems to solve.

This is how executives (the good ones) do it and how they become executives. They see a problem, they act before anybody else acts, and then they become the hero. As you can imagine it pays off for them very well from a career planning perspective.

And it’s perfectly okay to change that career plan any time you want. If you do this, and you stay in a constant learning-mode, it will make you highly employable. Good economy or bad economy, your skills and talents will be in demand. If a job layoff does occur, you will be the one ready for it.

To summarize this powerful strategy:

1. Drop the old job-security mindset. It doesn’t work very well.
2. To build your employability, create a career plan and update it.
3. Your career plan should have a list of skills you want to develop.
4. Base your skill building on where you think your profession is going.
5. Create some development opportunities for yourself:
(education, classroom, books, mentors, experiences)
6. Be on the lookout for a newly emerging problem that everybody else is avoiding.
7. Figure out how to fix that problem, and transform yourself in the process.
8. Review, update and change your career plan often.

This works for me and many other people I know; it will work for you as well. I can tell you that I experienced job growth, promotion and a pay raise all in the last 12 months, the same 12 months that the economy imploded. I will post a career planning template later this month, but the thought process above should help get you started if you don’t have one. Start prospering!

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