The One Word You Must Know If You Ever Want To Work Again

Posted on | October 19, 2009 | No Comments

The job market is slowly…slowly…slowly pinking up, but it will be at least two quarters before the bulk of us begin to notice signs of life in our local or regional markets.  And, the truth is, once your market does start to come to life, it won’t be any easier to find a job–at least not in the short-term.  Why?  Because 15.1 million people and counting are unemployed, and, in a given month, there have been an average 3-4 million jobs available.  That means that there are nearly 5 unemployed people for every available job.  Let’s hope that changes in the coming quarters, that we see the average number of available jobs shoot up so the competition can go down.

But, if the number of available jobs doesn’t drastically increase, you can still get to the front of the resume line by embracing one word–SPECIALIZE.

For any given job there may be thousands of qualified and currently unemployed people.  And, the recession has created a huge buyers’ market for talent.  That means that we must all add something extra to our offering.  We can’t simply have a bachelors degree; we must have a relevant degree.  We can’t simply be familiar with technology used by practitioners in a given industry; we must have led an implementation of the technology.  We can’t simply be paralegals; we must become landman paralegals.

Specialize as a way of distancing yourself from the pack, as a way of declaring value.  So how do you go about it?

5 WAYS TO SPECIALIZE AND IMPROVE YOUR JOB PROSPECTS

1. Earn a degree in a growing field (Ex: design, engineering, biochemistry, medicine)
2. Attend executive education courses on timely topics (Ex: product management, organizational change or supply chain management)
3. Earn a certificate to create an area of specialty in your current field (Ex: A contractor earning a green building certificate)
4. Complete an externship to gain on-the-job experience in a new (or new to you) or emerging field (Ex: Social media marketing, call center management)
5. Independent study (You can teach yourself new tricks, but you’ll need to be able to demonstrate mastery by writing white papers, getting published or speaking at industry events)

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