Hundreds of thousands of employees have been terminated over the past months and many more will be.
GM announced a buy out for all their salaried employees immediately! Meta/Face Book, Google and other tech firms continue to reduce their numbers of employees.
Many of those middle managers have been terminated already and those that have soon to be have never developed a Career Plan.
How can so many people place themselves at risk by never developing a plan for how they will live comfortably for about the 40 years they have to work, and even more importantly – to survive the additional 20+ years in their lives after work?
My old basic tenet: Nobody plans to fail…they just fail to plan. This certainly rings true in the current job market and for the future world of work.
It’s been obvious for quite awhile now that technology has been automating jobs out of existence and that trend is now being accelerated by the advances in artificial intelligence. Major corporations have been investing millions in digitizing their operations and in the process eliminating employees. As a result, they also increase profitability.
Now we have uncertain economic conditions spooking management and adding to their need to reduce their operating expenses by reducing their numbers of employees to maintain profitability.
The combination of technological advances and economic uncertainty is fueling the largest expected continuing reduction in overall employment in businesses in recent history.
Obviously, the impact on the overall economy will continue to rattle economists, the government and social stability.
It’s hard to understand how so many people haven’t thought about and planned for their lives, their careers and their finances. Many of those being terminated are in the middle of their careers, have families and large financial obligations.
It’s time for many to seriously consider developing their personal brand so that they can market themselves more effectively in the new world of work.
Most people think that their work reputation is their personal brand – not true! Your personal brand is your unique value proposition and authenticity.
It’s what the value of your internal skill set can be utilized for to solve problems unrelated to a specific job, as was the case in your work life. It’s the value that you can bring to society in order to carve out a niche to enable yourself to survive and thrive in the new world of work.
Stop crafting a resume for jobs that will no longer exist and convert those efforts into creating your personal brand to salvage your career!
