Today most employees let their company manage their careers. Why? It is about time to equilibrate the debate.
One of my favourite saying is “if you ask you are not sure to get anything but if you do not ask you are pretty certain that you will get nothing”. The same applies to career management.
Active or passive career management?
The truth is that most employees rely on their company to take care of their career management. It is what I call passive career management.
Rare are those who actively decide to do something about it. When they so decide they unfortunately have little on offer.
A very expensive service
The best-known services to employees are “outplacement” companies. Let us face it, they are mostly dealing with people in between jobs.
Such services are expensive, often paid by the company that helped you decide that you would “give a new orientation” to your career. They often charge a month of your salary. Hardly an incentive to a casual decision.
An unfulfilled need
Traditional Chinese medicine is about avoiding you to fall sick rather than curing you. Why not apply this sound principle to career management? Most probably because the service is not today available at a reasonable cost and the fact that it is not yet natural for employees to do so.
Mumbo jumbo…
Traditional (outplacement) advising or counselling to employees require face to face meetings, evaluation of your skills, recommendations from previous employers, psychoanalysis of your profile etc.
This may have been necessary at a time when changing jobs was rare (even if I have my doubts that all of it was that helpful) but the employment world has changed. Chances are that you will move jobs many times in your career. It not only has become normal but even considered a plus.
So why go through this mumbo jumbo? Probably to justify high fees. The only real advantage of outplacement would be to get access to another network than yours. You should not be charged one month of your salary to review your CV and prepare yourself to interviews nowadays.
Keep it simple but just do it
If you want to do some active career management just do it. It is harder the first time than the second one and it becomes “easier” with practice. It is like exercise, get used to it and it will soon become part of your routine.
Get some experienced professional advice and keep it simple. A chat from time to time, an attractive updated CV on LinkedIn, and a good preparation to job interviews. Be open to changes and opportunities. The idea is for you to treat career management as an integral part of your job.
I created food microconsulting to provide simple, fast, and affordable help to food industry professionals. Active career management services.
You can read more at:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/uber-food-consulting-olivier-goudineau
or visit www.foodmicroconsulting.com
