In today’s stagnant job growth economy, you CAN conduct an effective job search to find work!
Today’s job market looks entirely different than it did a decade ago, and will look entirely different in a year or two from now. Are you prepared to achieve professional success in this 21st Century global, contract job market? Today’s “new normal” economy offers greatly reduced opportunities for high-paying jobs and a constantly changing landscape that perpetually challenges our ability to remain viable as serious job seeker candidates. Following are key attributes of today’s job market as we struggle to recover from 2008’s Great Recession:
* Workplace productivity continues to skyrocket due to such factors as gains in automation, business process improvements, technological advancements, robotics, the Internet, outsourcing, off-shoring, reductions in workforce, right-sizing, re-engineering. From 1973-2011, worker productivity increased 80%. Since 2000, productivity has increased 23%, yet hourly worker pay has remained unchanged according to the Economic Policy Institute.
* All the supposed job growth our economy has achieved during this latest “recovery” are in relatively low skill fields within the services sector such as retail.
* Worker ability to negotiate higher rates keeps dropping esp. as the power of unions continues to decline in America.
* the “official” Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment rate is 7.8%. However, the “REAL” unemployment rate is closer to two times that as the official number does not account for people who are significantly under-employed or have stopped receiving benefits and have stopped looking for work.
* The average American will change jobs 8-10 times by the age of 35.
* A typical job search today may likely involve spending TWO YEARS looking for a contract assignment that lasts a year.
* One in four American workers can now be classified as temporary, independent, or contract workers who are not employed on a full-time basis thus not receiving benefits, health insurance, or other safeguards that come from full-time employment.
* the largest single group of job creators (small business owners) are NOT hiring because they are uncertain of America’s future business environment as pertains to future tax rates, access to capital, resources, inventory, supplies, and their ability to pay back short and long-term financial obligations.
So, given this “NEW NORMAL” of jobless economic improvement, what can you do to find meaningful FULL-TIME employment in an organization whose values and code of conduct you respect which also allows you to realize your full potential?
The truth is there are A LOT of opportunities in today’s job market. You just have to know how (AND WHERE) to find them. Here’s how:
Go Back to School: In today’s climate of constant change, transformation and uncertainty you can bulletproof your career by constantly updating/enhancing your portfolio of transferable skills. Learn Mandarin Chinese or Hindi, the national language of India. Take courses in WordPress, learn about peer-to-peer file sharing, try your hand at such programming languages as PHP, MySQL, PERL, Ruby, Javascript, etc.
Follow the Trends: You have GOT to stay on top the latest business & industry trends and developments and then seize opportunities as an “Early Adopter.” Right now, cloud-based anything is hot. also in demand are distance-based/virtual teams, thus anything to do with collaboration (look into open-source innovation platforms like Github) and networking is king. Learn all you can about mobile technology, attend the Consumer Electronics show, and pay attention to bloggers and subscriber to e-newsletters that focus on cell phones, PDAs, mobile devices, tablets, laptops, e-readers, consumer data-gathering devices, plus other technologies.
Security in a Post-9/11 World: Learn about the key players in the field of security, such as Johnson Controls, Tyco, Honeywell, Bosch, Hirsch Electronics. Find out all there is to know about CCTV systems, surveillance, access control solutions, biometrics, ID systems, and other sectors of the security and intelligence fields.
Therapy For All: Given all the characteristics outlined above in today’s “New normal” hyper stressful workplace, there is a rapidly increasing demand for all types of worker who calms the savage beast of stress. Yoga instructors, social workers, life coaches, personal trainers, spiritual advisers, and yes…business coaches can help the overworked American deal with the MANY physiological manifestations that arise out of coping with constant stress.
Social Media: This goes hand-in-hand with the evolution of social networking online and the proliferation in tools, systems, platforms that help us to facilitate and measure our relationships esp. online (such as Vizify, Pitnerest, Tumblr to name a few.)
Co-opetition: May sound like an oxymoron but it is an aspect of doing business in today’s new normal business climate. Stands for organizations who partner together in one instance and compete with each other in the next. Consider such “frien-emies” as Apple and Google, or IBM and Microsoft.
Web 2.0 and Beyond: Marketing has been completed transformed from the traditional 5-P model encompassing pricing, promotions, placement, product, and packaging to a post-Internet commercialization era of the 1990s model which emphasizes INDIVIDUALITY & INTERACTIVITY. Marketers must now be able to customize messages they send to the masses (called “mass customization”) while also being able to engage with, get feedback from, and modify their product & service offerings by speaking directly with their customers.
* Competitive intelligence Research: This is also referred to as “mystery shopping.” These service providers get contracted by their clients to obtain information on a client’s competitors using many different investigative approaches. This business intelligence field represents $30 billion annually in revenue according to Gartner Research. Social engineering is a term for obtaining information directly from organizations speaking to their owners, employees,customers, and even their suppliers. This form of information gathering is used to obtain all sorts of information such as revenues, number of units sold, gross margin, inventory, numbers of customers, cash flow..all sorts of goodies.
So, to be successful in finding gainful employment that satisfies all your needs it is critical that you learn as much as you possibly can about new technologies, key industry players, and rising industries BEFORE they blow up so you can gain the benefits of being “first to market.”
Ethan Chazin, The Compassionate Coach
