We are in the midst of a seismic shift in the world of career development. Millions of employed professionals have or will be made redundant in one foul sweep. This will hit unprecedented numbers of people at the same time. Combining this with the fact that the worldwide economy will take years to recover from the tectonic shifts of CoVid19, we are likely to see millions of professionals transfer to the gig economy or become entrepreneurs.
I believe this will have a massive impact on the view behind traditional career trajectories. Those corporate veterans who were comfortable in the sways of their corporate walls, will now find themselves in a fluid environment where they have to find ways to make their next ‘pay cheque’ if they have been made redundant. In addition, talent acquisition professionals will soon have to accept the CoVid19 tsunami of CVs with gig-like stints in the years of 2020-2021.
If these 2 elements are combined with the new Gen Z demands for employee experiences rather than jobs, there will be an inevitable shift by both corporations and entrepreneurial ventures to offer project-based opportunities rather than full-time job offers.
As a result, the linear corporate career trajectory will come to an end. We are now welcoming in the era of the Flexible Career Path, one that my co-author, Nicola Walther and I predicted in our book a decade ago – Your Loss How to Win Back your Female Talent, is inevitable. I would go as far as to rename it the Experience Path, where CVs reflect the experiences and transferable skills of professionals working in a portfolio career.
What are the implications of these tectonic shifts for professionals?
- They will find themselves in a sea full of many fish similar to them. As a result, they will need to find ways to stand out in a very noisy market for the next best project or opportunity. Seeing themselves as an asset and selling their skills-sets will be critical.
- They will need to build perseverance to cope in a very fluid environment of the gig or project-based worlds. For those who have been working as consultants or micro-businesses, this fluidity is one which takes a while to master. Managing cash-flow, limiting costs and the emotional toils that go with such a fluid existence are some of the multifold challenges.
- They will need to build a solid support group for themselves. As the proverb goes, ‘if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together’. They will need to master the skill of building a mutually-beneficial community which can support them during transitions and offer a sounding board when in turmoil.
This is why I have relaunched the super-charging Career Transformation: Reboot, Rebuild, Reconquer Bootcamp, offering my 20-year experience of personal and professional transformation following double-redundancy and a business failure in the early 2000s.
There is no school like experience. Little did I know that the methodologies I had to create for myself following the enormous blocks placed on my personal career will, once again, be of relevance to others in this time of unprecedented change as they were during the last financial crisis in 2008.
