My dear reader, I wish the best for you. May you succeed in your profession. May good things happen and you get far more than you ever asked for. I hope you get employment as per potential. Therefore, today I’ll ask you a question rather bluntly.
What is your true worth outside your office?
What I mean to say is:
Do people outside your workplace know who you are and what you do?
I am not talking about friends and family. I am talking about influential people and decision makers knowing about you. The kind who can actually provide the work opportunity you want to have. Say you’re a Manual Tester at Accenture. You’re from a place where it’s a huge achievement to get into such a big multinational. You feel that your main identity is that you work for Accenture. If this is how things are, in this case, then answer the following question:
Are you sure that if your project shut down or the company laid you off, then you’ll be able to find another job easily?
Staying in certain projects or technologies for too long, can affect a person’s employability elsewhere. Markets can often be volatile. With Corona virus affecting China, on whom almost every country does business with, a recession will occur soon. In case you are without work or you anyway have to make a switch, then:
Can you explain in 30 seconds, what are your unique points and why must anyone work with you?
Don’t talk about what you’ve done in the past or are doing for your current company. Talk about what you can do for others. What I mean to say is:
How good are you at clearly highlighting the tangible benefits you can bring to a prospective company?
Maybe you’re a business analyst. You are doing a decent job in your company. However, when the market is flooded with too many business analysts, what special aspect can you bring? What makes you stand out among all others in the same profession? In case you are unclear on your speciality, then just think:
Are you just another employee in an IT firm, or you’re someone whom others need for a purpose?
If your answer is the first one then you’ll have to progress in your career. That is, take your career several steps ahead of where you currently are. Do something which your peers might not be doing. Because there’s survival of the fittest. Now, answer this:
Do you have traits of being someone whom a recruiter can contact just by seeing your public profile?
That is, you shouldn’t reach a stage where you spend months contacting people to get a job. Especially if you’re unemployed. Startups can shut down, so can projects inside companies. Most IT jobs in India were created by companies of other countries to save costs. Tomorrow the same companies can outsource your job to another place that is cheaper. Due to factors like these, some good people can be adversely affected.
Even if you are good at something, it may no longer be demanded in the market (as it often happens to most technologies). Several employers don’t care about long term growth of an employee, they just want to get immediate work done. When that work gets done, in today’s world, there is no guarantee of job stability. Hence, you must try to have a good network of people, who can help you out in times of need. For that, you need to make people aware of your goodnesses.
Now, answer the last question.
Is your online presence so good that you can get a job without interview?
The answer to this question, will determine your true worth outside your company. I know one CEO, who was so enamoured by a UX designer’s work on behance, that he offered her to join without interview. I know a recruiter who offered internship to a student selected by Google summer of code. A friend of mine got contacted by recruiters on LinkedIn, based on achievements and skills he had enlisted.
If these people can do it then so can you. The true worth of your professional career is when relevant people know you apart from your workplace. They don’t just know you – also they respect you and want to work with you. Because they know about how you’ll make their company grow. And they know it because you’ve told them about it, at the right places on the Internet.
So, whatever you’re doing at work, just keep at it. Use your spare time to build an effective online presence. Focus on being the best version of yourself. Be prepared to tell others about your USP.
Because if you don’t do that now, then tomorrow someone else will get the job. Who was at the right place, at the right time.
Yaju Arya Dot Com 