“The difference between a job and a career is the difference between forty and sixty hours a week. â€
Robert Frost
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statics still shows about 9.1% of workers are unemployed. Results from a fairly recent Gallup survey found that currently unemployed Americans have been actively looking for work for a median of 14 weeks, including 25% who have been doing so for a year or more. The majority of the unemployed (51%) have been out of work more than a month but less than a year.
Job seekers aged 50 to 65 report the highest median length of unemployment, at 28 weeks, while 18- to 29-year-olds report the shortest length of unemployment, at 6 weeks.
I look back to my father’s era and story. He was given a job opportunity after escaping Nazi Germany and living in an orphanage for most of his child and teenage years in San Francisco and worked 36 years for one company that still exists today and is still incredible–Levi Straus. He still has a tremendous loyalty and admiration for the company and I can’t remember a time growing up that he looked at another company to interview with or considered leaving–the “quid pro quo and psychological contract those days of “job security” meant you would have a “job for life” if you kept your nose clean and just worked hard on behalf of the company. Today, this one paradigm shift from “job security” to “employability security” can’t be clearer.
In fact, in my early career I was laid off a few times–the first while cutting my teeth as a young and inexperienced manager at U.C. Davis in Student Affairs (only a two-year contract was offered) and then at Rockwell International due to a large downsizing as the government felt they had built enough stealth B-1 bombers. I learned early that my career would be very different from my father’s and that we needed to have a “free agent” mentality even if we had devotion to the organization or industry sector we were looking for.
Early in my career, I also co-chaired a special division of ASTD (American Society for Training and Development) in Los Angeles for career practitioners (in the late 1980s to early 1990s most large organizations actually employed full-time or part-time career coaches/counselors to assist employees with internal career growth and development). This special division disbanded as there were fewer “career counselors” around and most talent seemed much savvier about career search strategies and techniques. This era also coincided with so many “outplacement” firms redefining themselves into broader consulting and executive coaching shops to address fundamental changes in jobs and careering.
I do believe that we ask talent at all levels to do more with less resources today to remain globally competitive but without guarantees of long-term security. I also believe the “currency” of the future is really about cultivating “just in time” competencies to be valuable and competitive in the job market (with your current company or another one).
This also supports my unpopular belief that most academic degrees, like dairy p
roducts, should come with expiration dates and either be renewed or expired (I have to be careful expressing this when I teach at major Universities though).
Finally, I do believe that work is just one facet of life success–the other facets being relationships, happiness, health and legacy.
I’ve lectured a lot about the “changing career paradigms” that I have observed from my early days as one of the psychologists at the UCLA Extension career center (no longer in operation) and it seems pertinent today to revisit. At a recent UCLA EMBA lecture of mine I was discussing this slide when someone asked, “do you think the paradigm will ever shift back to the left?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer this interesting question and would love to hear some thoughts from all of you about your observations about these shifts today and how it impacts leading, engaging talent, retention of high performers and productivity….Be well….
Ken Nowack
Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY13758) and President & Chief Research Officer/Co-Founder of Envisia Learning, is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Ken also serves as the Associate Editor of Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. His recent book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It is available for free for a limited time by signing up for free blog updates (Learn more at our website)
