When Playing It Safe is the Riskiest Career Move By Liz Ryan

For years we were told "Get a safe job!"
That meant "Get a job with a big company where you can stay for years -- maybe even until retirement." There are no 'safe' jobs anymore. Big companies lay off thousands of people at the drop of a hat.
Small companies get bought and split up. There is no job security anywhere in the world of employment. No company can offer you job security, and even if someone gave you an employment contract, the entity that gave you the contract could itself disappear tomorrow. Your only income security is in yourself and your own marketability.
Sadly though, most people are not in touch with their marketability. They are terrified of being out of a job, but that is like being terrified of going out of your neighborhood. You're going to have to step out and get new jobs between now and your retirement, unless your retirement date is already set and it's only a few months away.
We all have to get good at job-hunting. Getting a job is much harder than doing the job, as every job-hunter knows. The best thing we can do is to get good at the hardest part of the process, so that we don't have to worry about it!
You're going to have to market yourself to employers and/or clients at some point, so you're going to have to know what valuable things you bring them. I'm not talking about your six or twenty-six years of experience or your 'skill sets.' No one really cares about those things unless your skills are very rare.
You're going to have to market yourself another way. These days, you need to know the answer to the question "What problem do I solve for my employers or clients?"
If you don't know the answer to that question, I wouldn't waste any time before starting to find that answer!
You can do a lot of things, but the key question is "Among all the things I know how to do, which one(s) solve real problems that employers or clients experience - problems that cost them money?"
We call these problems Business Pain. Knowing what kind of Business Pain you solve is the key to knowing your value in the wild and woolly new-millennium talent market.
Maybe you solve the Business Pain that organizations run into when they can't generate sales leads fast enough.
If you know that you can solve 'Shortage of Sales Leads Pain,' then you can brand yourself that way. In that case, you won't say "I'm a full-service Marketer with marketing communications and product marketing experience!"
Zillions of people can say that. Not all of them can truthfully say "I help companies generate more sales leads than they can handle." You only have to have solved that type of Business Pain once in order to claim it!
Maybe you solve customer-service pain or "we can't hire good people" pain. You have to know what kind of Business Pain you solve for your employers. That's more important than your degrees or certifications, your years of experience or the kinds of software you've used.
Once you know what kind of Business Pain you solve, you can seek out employers and clients who are likely to have that kind of pain.
When you have a handle on the Business Pain you solve, you gain power in the employer-employee or client-vendor relationship.
Until then, you will be just another needy job-seeker, and that is an awful place to be. When you know your power, you won't be paranoid about getting laid off. You won't keep your personality under wraps at work just to keep your manager happy. Who could pay you enough to get you to deny who you really are?
Too many workplaces run on fear. Everybody in those places is afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing.
When you can solve expensive Business Pain that costs your clients or employers money, you call the shots. You don't have to skulk around all day at work, walking on eggshells, trying to stay on the right side of people you don't respect.
Some people believe a lot of nonsense about the working world. They believe that it's riskier to leave a bad job and try something new than to stay at a job they hate.
They think there is security in their current job for no reason apart from the fact that they've already got the job. That's no security! You could be let go tomorrow.
I feel terrible for people who say "I guess I'll keep this job as long as the company wants me." That's worse than passivity. It's abdicating your choice over your career path. That's the riskiest choice you can make!
Your security is in your ability to bob and weave in the talent marketplace and to keep growing your muscles all the time. The more people who know what you're good at, the more marketable you are - so why stay at a job where there are no more people to meet, and where you can't learn anything more than you already know?
The worst course of action today is to try and "play it safe" when it comes to your career. The only safety available is the knowledge that if your current gig disappears or doesn't suit you anymore, you can find another one fast.
That security doesn't come from hunkering down at your current job and hoping against hope that you keep the job for a long time. How could you plan your future that way, or even get a good night's sleep?
The longer you keep the job -- unless you are constantly learning and becoming more marketable -- the more your resume will degrade and your muscles will atrophy.
You will have traded transitory 'job security ' for a degradation of the very things that give you long-term security. Could that trade-off ever be worth it?
When you're faced with the career question "Should I stay here, or move on?" the right answer is nearly always "move on."
What could an extra year or two at your current assignment give you that you couldn't get more of somewhere else?
Yes, change is jarring, but it's the ability to deal with fast changes that makes people nimble and that lets them bob on the water no matter what circumstances life hands them.
Increasingly in this new-millennium workplace, there are two kinds of working people: those who are rafting through the rapids, soaking wet, breathing hard and growing muscles, and others who are trying as hard as they can to find calm water to drift in.
There is no calm water, and any quiet patch of river you find will soon give way to rocks and eddies that will pull you under if your muscles haven't been exercised lately.
Can you step into the new talent market, start paddling and enjoy the ride?
KINGSMITH.