The New Economy of Work
By Barbara Poole
We’ve moved from how to escape from your corporate career, to how to tell if your company is going under, to how to deal when your industry implodes, to how to write a marketing piece instead of a resume, all the way to giving up on the job search and counting on self as the only sure thing. And we’ve done this in what - 8 months? If you’re feeling a little like “deer in the headlights,” you’re not alone. Moving from what was to the reality of what is makes the difference. There’s no more HR Department. There’s no direct deposit, there hadn’t been a new resume in a decade, and it’s time to get with the Program. If you are a mid-career person who is completely lost as to what’s next, the first thing to do is focus on what you know, and even more importantly, who you know. The new power may not be your paycheck (ha! what paycheck, right?) but instead, it’s the power of who you know, and how you contribute to the development of a community to support your efforts going forward. Collaboration holds the key to success in the new economy of work.
Survive at Work
By Barbara Poole
A few months ago, career columns were all about how to leave your job, or escape from your job, or develop a social media job search strategy, or write a resume, or present yourself to a prospective employer in ways that would dazzle, and so forth. In the wake of 500,000 layoffs and far more on the horizon, job search has been eclipsed in the media by advice on job preservation. This slideshow on how to save your job, presented by CNN/Money Magazine, would make a great screen saver. As the economy worsens, the added stress of saving your job while looking for a job makes for a rocky path on the road to the New Economy.
Reality in 2009: Migrating to a New Industry
By Barbara Poole
Here we are in January. It is traditionally the time of year when bookstores display huge stacks of books on weight loss. In a “what’s up with that deal?”, cookbooks are selling like hotcakes at this time of year as well. What is happening here is that two ends of the spectrum are going on at the same time, and one end can very well cancel out advances made at the other end.
In a similar fashion, the traditional push at the New Year is to satisfy career goals. There are lots of great books and materials to help in the search process. But, much like the Dr. Doolittle character called Pushmi-Pullyu we’re experiencing an employment paradox. It is a moment in time when millions of lofty career aspirations are being cancelled out, since industries are drying up faster than someone can post their resume online. What does all this mean to you?
Searching for a career in the same way that conventional wisdom dictated even a year ago doesn’t cut it anymore.
Financial services, auto manufacturing, real estate construction are just a few of the victims of the economic collapse. What will you do if your industry dries up? Many workers are returning to school as a way to mark time while searching for their next position. Still others are lost in a downward spiral of staring at the online boards in the vain hope of finding employment in the same old way, hoping against hope that buried deep in the listings they will find a spot that suits them perfectly.
Who succeeds in this new employment economy? People who understand product marketing, and learn to position themselves as a desirable commodity in the new world of work. Here are five tips for making product marketing work for you:
1. Understand your current industry.
To completely evaluate your industry means researching not only news stories, business web sites, and seeking out the words of experts. It also requires you to know about pay scales for positions comparable to yours, as well as geographical regions the industry gravitates to, and projected economic factors that could slow or propel the industry forward. You can also do some Informational Interviewing. Talk with people in new industries as well as your own to get their views on who’s hiring, who’s firing, and the employment picture going forward.
2. Figure out the themes in specific positions within industry sectors.
For example, if you are studying health care institutions, you will hear lots of talk about satisfaction scores, and the competition for patients’ voluntary admissions to obtain procedures. It becomes obvious that high levels of customer service are going to be necessary to lead healthcare into the next decade. Start-ups? Lots of quick decision making. Manufacturing? Leaner business processes and green energy efficiency. You get the picture.
3. Evaluate where you stand.
This is usually where the getting stuck part happens: OK you say, that’s very interesting, but I don’t have any experience in any of these things. But, dear Employaid Member, odds are you do, in some shape or form. This is the time to grab a coffee and tally up your significant career achievements. Next to each accomplishment, list out the reasons why you were successful. Was it great skills, a super mentor, a supportive team, technical ability, and so forth. Look at each situation in the way a hiring manager would be reviewing your resume: from the outside in. Now compare where you stand against the trends you’ve gathered in your own industry analysis. The skills you “own” make up your personal portfolio. These are your golden tickets, yours to leverage outside of your current industry. In areas where you know you need to get stronger, begin an all out campaign to acquire the skills you need in the shortest amount of time. (Subscribe to industry journals, read at least one major news source daily. Enroll in a fast track certificate program. Join a professional trade association. These are but a few ways to gather the knowledge that you need.) Why the rush? Savvy marketers know that audiences are fickle, and the darling of one moment may be yesterday’s news. While you are off marking time in school, the world can turn upside down, and you’re back to square one. Yes, college without a doubt provides a platform for success. However, in the new economy, speed to market is key.
Success in the New World of Work comes to those who can most quickly migrate their skills to new industries.
4. Package yourself for success.
When I talk with people, I often ask the question, “If you were a box of Cheerios, how would you market yourself?” That’s a tough one for many to answer. It requires a person to go beyond what they need in a position to think about what an employer needs to hear to get to the next step: your particular brand coming off the shelf and into the cart. The process gets a little trickier when applying for jobs in different industries. What will you highlight for a position with a start-up, vs. a position with an established health care provider? What will you feature on the front of the package for each variation in position or industry? It is the same reason there are Honey Nut Cheerios, Whole Grain Cheerios, and so on. Variations on a theme are called line extensions by marketers. It is all about taking the same product and changing it slightly to attract a different consumer. How many line extensions can you create for your next position? How easily will you be able to repackage yourself for your next move?
5. Never stop marketing yourself.
Once upon a time, life was very predictable. Get to work at 9:00 AM. Punch the clock. Head to the cube. Take a break at 10:30. Get the direct deposit. Take a week’s vacation in June, when the kids are out of school. For those who remember Bob Dylan’s words in the song, “The Times They are a Changin.” Legacy companies who offered the veil of security are becoming extinct. Company loyalty in the way our parents understood it to be is a thing of the past. The skills you’ve acquired in your current search are ones that need to stay in play on a continuous basis. Much like the “Ready Go!” bag developed by Homeland Security, developing a Ready Go! Career Strategy is essential for success. One thing is for sure, is the fact that careers as we have come to know them have forever changed. The average life span of employment is now 2.5 years. Odds are you’ll be migrating to a brave new world before you know it.
College is Over…..Get a Job!
By Barbara Poole
From College to Cubicle
Employaid is thinking Career Placement! We’re committed to being a resource to upcoming college grads who are entering the workforce.
In September, we’re shooting videos about the whole college to work scene. Whether you or someone you know is in career entry mode, or you can remember that time and wish you knew more back when it was your turn, your ideas are valuable to us.
Please post your ideas for videos to help college seniors and grad students get ready to enter the workforce. From researching companies, networking, and everything in between, these are tough times. For now, lives conducted through IM’s and texts must be converted to real conversation!
As with all of our videos, we’re delivering McBytes of information that can be viewed in about three minutes. Thanks in advance - help college grads hit the ground running. They need every paycheck they can get 
Scripting starts next week - get your idea on film and receive credit for it on Employaid.com by responding ASAP.
Don’t Pick up the Bait
By Barbara Poole
I am writing this tonight on the way to St. Petersburg, Russia. It is a place I never thought I would visit. A world of mystery, harshness, and over-reaching government. Of all the places to find an analogy to life in corporate America, this was the last place I thought I would find it. But there is one. I learned that Russian police have such meager salaries that they seek to fatten their wallets by harassing tourists for money. It goes like this: at any moment, a tourist can expect to be approached by a policeman, who demands passport and documents for inspection. The cop finds “an irregularity” and immediately demands payment of a fine. If you push back, he will eventually go away without the fine. However, if you’re not a Russian native, you will not be as lucky. Another situation involves petty thieves who will throw a wallet on the street, and wait until an unsuspecting tourist picks it up. At that moment, he leaps out and demands that the tourist pay back the money he “stole” from the wallet. While wallet scams can happen in Russia, we’re also talking about petty crimincals in other metro areas where people are desparate for survival.
Times are tough in today’s job economy. And in corporate America, the landscape is just as rough. How often does it happen that employees in companies that are experiencing layoffs and restructurings are called out for faulty reports, hours irregularitiess, or any infractions too many to list here? The fact is that as jobs become more precious, people become more intense in their desire for self preservation. Whether it is a “document irregularity”, or a symbolic wallet on the street, savvy employees learn the art of being participant observers in the movie called work. They are as much in the movie as they are observing it, giving themselves strategic advantage over those who will intentionally trip them up for their own gain. The moral of the story: Push back if the message you receive is a faulty one, and whatever you do, run from a wallet on the sidewalk like it has the plague.
Wearing the Paper Dress
By Barbara Poole
So, you go to the doctor for a check-up. Or maybe you’re there to get some tests. Everything’s fine, you’re feeling like you, and things are cool until you get to the office. At some point you get taken into a room and are told to take off your clothes and put on this stupid paper dress and wait for the doctor. Sometimes it’s not made out of paper. It could be made of some kind of fabric, but the crinkly feel of fabric you would never wear in your right mind makes it feel the same as paper.
OK. You’re in the dress, feeling pretty undignified, and you climb up on the table and wait. After awhile the doc walks in, and all of a sudden, you become a deaf mute. Can’t remember what you wanted to ask, can’t understand what’s being explained, and in 10 minutes - wham, bam, you’re done and back in your clothes. And the dress, with its’ magical powers is stuffed in the bin, not looking at all magical.
We’ve started the Employaid Exchange this week. It’s a place where you can go on www.employaid.com to ask a question or get some advice from one of our Exchange Experts. We’re having a great time answering the questions. What does this have to do with the paper dress? Well, a lot, or so it seems. For many employees, going into work means putting on a paper dress when they hit the office. What is it about work that can turn competent people into employees who feel, whether they’re dealing with tyrannical bosses or twisted co-workers, that they can’t speak up for themselves? It all goes back to the paper dress. They’re never stylish, and most of us certainly don’t wear them well.
Whose Portrait is on Your Paycheck?
By Barbara Poole
How often have you been introduced to someone, and the first question you’re asked is, “What do you do?” Probably more than a few times. It’s a fact of life: people judge others by where they work, and what they earn. In certain circles, people are judged by how many letters of the alphabet they have after their name.
What happens when you let your work define how others perceive you, and in fact, how you perceive yourself? It’s a double edged sword. When people are highly successful, they often lose themselves in the role of, for example, a lawyer, stock trader, banker, or internet guru. Some would say that they get so wrapped up in their role, that it becomes their reality. That may be troubling, but it pays the mortgage.
What happens when, on the dull edge of the sword, people find themselves in a position of working to live? The relentless pressure to make ends meet can slowly begin to lower peoples’ expectations for their present and future. That’s the paradox examined by Oprah Winfrey this month. Early in life, she worked in demeaning jobs that paid far less than her worth, until she started in the $100.00 a week broadcasting job that changed everything. Although her lifestyle has improved a thousand fold, Oprah knows for sure that throughout her life, in good times and those devastating early years. “I let money serve its purpose. But I don’t live to serve money.”
When you are in a job that you don’t love, or when you find that you are working to pay the bills, you are the only force that can change the situation you’re in. Change comes slowly sometimes, but it comes to those who can paint a different portrait than the one they’ve created for themselves. How will you climb to the top of your career expectations – with a step stool or an extension ladder?
Another Smart Member Wins a Prize
By Barbara Poole
Congratulations to member ccuhsnick, who’s just won an Amazon gift card for entering and winning our weekly drawing. Who’s next? It could be you! Register and make just one comment on any piece of content on the site and be entered into the random drawing. There are two more gift cards waiting. If you enter ten comments, you’ll be eligible to win the super 8 gb iPod Touch.
Escape from Corporate America
By Barbara Poole
With journalistic flair, author Pamela Skillings bares all - the good, the bad, the ugly - and the misery - endured by corporate employees across the United States. Through anecdotes and characters all too painfully real, Pam recounts the corporate life that sent her packing from her own circle of hell in corporate America. Her colleagues’ prodding her to write a book about the experience led to Escape from Corporate America. Thanks to Pam’s entertaining style, readers realize that they are not alone in their shackles. There are millions of compatriots rattling their chains through the halls of office buildings everywhere. Skillfully designed self-assessment worksheets and analysis offer readers the opportunity to plan their escape from a cubicle into the job of their dreams. All without needing a file baked into a birthday cake. As a fellow traveler on the road of the empowered employee, Employaid endorses Escape from Corporate America as yet another tool for corporate employees to find their future - and here’s the twist - outside the “safety and security” of a corporate position. Congrats to Pam Skillings on a groundbreaking success!
We Have a Winner!
By Barbara Poole
Congratulations to the first $50.00 Amazon Gift Card winner, peteybear! Thanks for being a Member, and commenting on the site! There are still 3 more Gift Cards up for grabs in our weekly drawing, along with the brand new, magnificent 8 GB iPod Touch. Come on, what are you waiting for? Register and share your comments today!
