RSSThe Other Cause of Long Term Unemployment
A lot of us have been unemployed for a very long time. The conventional explanation for this situation is that layoffs have forced more workers to compete for fewer positions. While that’s true, it is not the only reason—nor the most important one—that so many people remain out of work for so long.
The other and primary cause of long term unemployment is a change in employers’ expectations. They are no longer content to hire qualified workers. That’s the reason so many job seekers get no response, no interview, no call back, nada even when their application clearly indicates they meet one hundred percent of an opening’s stated requirements. Employers may say that’s what they’re looking for in a new hire, but in reality, they expect more.
Employers today are battered by turbulence. They face new and escalating competition in both their local and overseas markets. They must satisfy an increasingly cost-conscious consumer who is also becoming more fickle about products and services. And, they are continuously pressured to keep up with the unceasing introduction of new technology and better practices.
To survive let alone prosper in such an unsettled environment, employers need workers who have two traits:
• they must be expert in their profession, craft or trade
and
• they must be committed to maintaining that expertise.
The first trait defines a qualified person. The second indicates they are also a “career activist.”
A career activist is a person who recognizes the fleeting nature of their ability to contribute on-the-job and therefore takes proactive steps to ensure their qualifications are always at the state-of-the-art. Why is that important? Because a qualified person can do a job today, but may and probably will not be able to do so tomorrow. In the unsettled environment of the global economy, every job is constantly in flux, and only a career activist has the capacity to adapt.
How do you become a career activist and, no less important, how do you prove to employers that you have?
Transforming Yourself
Becoming a career activist begins with acceptance. You must acknowledge that the “come as you are” workplace of the 20th Century no longer exists. The turbulence of the 21st Century economy means that nothing is settled any more. In effect, you must get comfortable with the one thing we humans hate most: change. You must be willing to expect it, plan for it and put it to work for you.
Then, you have to back up that acceptance with action. In the 20th Century, you could get away with paying attention to your career once a year—during your annual performance appraisal and salary review. In today’s workplace, you have to work on increasing the strength, endurance and reach of your career every single day. In short, you now go to work to do your job and to do all of the things that will ensure you can continue to do so.
Proving Your Activism to Employers
Once you’ve adopted that kind self-improvement philosophy and made it an integral part of your workday, you will start to develop a record that employers will appreciate. It will demonstrate your ongoing acquisition of skills and knowledge in both your primary field and in ancillary areas that will enable you to use that expertise in a broader range of workplace situations. It will also reflect your ever greater visibility and stature among a continuously expanding network of professional contacts. And, it will underscore your commitment to working on challenging assignments with top flight organizations and high performing peers.
Those are all the hallmarks of a career activist’s record. It is comprehensive in scope and, ironically, it will make you look incomplete. It will portray you as a person who is never satisfied with where you are, but always seeking to be more of what you can be. If you’re in a job search, for example, it will detail a course of instruction or a training program in which you are enrolled by noting the fact on your resume with the term: “ongoing.” That one word is an employer’s proof positive that you are, in fact, a career activist.
The long term unemployment that so many people are enduring today has its roots in the structural problems of the American economy. Its tap root, however, is a significant and permanent shift in what employers expect in their new hires. Unlike in the past, they are no longer content with qualified workers. They want (and need) to employ qualified workers who are also career activists.
Thanks for reading,
Peter
Visit me at Weddles.com
Peter Weddle is the author of over two dozen employment-related books, including Recognizing Richard Rabbit, a fable of self-discovery for working adults, and Work Strong, Your Personal Career Fitness System.
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