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Tuesday 8 July 2014

Make Your Own Lane: Mid Career Crisis?

You first begin to ponder if the crisis of joblessness is a short lived catastrophe or is it true that there are always jobs for those who have talent and want to work?

The reality bite is after your resume is through the initial screening of HR and business leaders on the basis of content alone  with almost zero hint at your real capability, after you have effectively handled the wrong age, too experienced, too qualified, too junior bias in interviews, after letting a software scan your personality traits mechanically, after multiple psychological  tests to assess your ability to perform, your options aren't plenty.

You deal with many other perceptions and myths too, if you have not handled a project relevant to your domain for six months, you probably lost that edge, need retraining to build your competence. 

It matters little that you have executed several other projects that required new skills.  In that case your wide range of skills is a serious threat to stability.

Each time there is a slightest hint of M&A, a probable sale of company stake or a technology innovation, an internal job transfer filling the post that you worked so hard for or another round of restructuring and job cuts to match profit targets, that poses threat to your cozy corporate cocoon -  you update your profile.

You begin exploiting your connects and job portals, knowing well, it would be a huge compromise driven by a sense of security for a pay check. After all the years of hard work,  promotions and all the learning towards an aspired goal, it is back to new insecurities.

Even if you lose your job  for no fault of yours,  the naked truth that it is the Management's failure will not be in the interviewer's radar. It is not about company's sustenance anymore but its very existence that is at stake. So the interviewer is already tilted mentally to the company's side almost stamping their decision as justified. The victim mentality is just not hire-able.

There are a dozen things one needs to unlearn to learn one new thing in a new environment, all the more so, when it comes to cultural fitness,  new hierarchy structure,  new responsibilities and deliverables that come with the new role, new management and dynamic business needs. That will most certainly require a new "You".

BECKON learning model works on the basic framework that key behavioral traits are always transferable based on which new skills are easily acquired. While we know anybody is expendable, we also know anyone can fill a generalist role, irrespective of industry or domain,  with right amount of mental mapping and ability alignment.

The prevalent practice of hiring on the basis of exact match with the job description instead of hiring on the basis of ability to do the job often leaves potential talent out. BECKON is an infant step to bridge that gap for more job creation and leveraged capacities.

Losing job might not be in your control always however losing employ-ability due to inability to mentally align to a new profile in an alternative domain, is very much in your scope to influence.

For more details contact advocating.outcomes@gmail.com

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