Your Career is a Corporation

I recently had the chance to talk with Martin Yate, one of my most-admired authors in the career advice space.  Martin and I chatted about how most of us will work for nearly half a century, changing jobs roughly every 3-4 years.  We agreed that now is the time for all professionals to take charge of their own careers.  Here was Martin’s advice:

“Certain transferable skills like communication, time management and organization, teamwork, creativity and leadership are transferable and sought by all employers in all professions and ease the transition from one job to another.  Now while these skills are critical to success, there is another skill, perhaps the most important of all that enables you to better navigate the rocky road between jobs and as you climb the promotional ladder. Smart professionals think of themselves as Me Inc., a financial entity much like a corporation, which must maintain a steady cash flow over half a century.

With Me Inc. awareness, you immediately have a serious commitment to profitability and are constantly developing Me Inc.’s products and services against the needs of your customer base, the employers who hire people like you. Me Inc’.s success demands ongoing initiatives for research and product development (skill building based on market trends), Marketing and PR (establishing personal credibility, positioning, visibility and branding), Strategic Planning (development of defensive and offensive career management strategies), and a state-of-the-art sales program (resume, job search and interviewing tactics).

Tomorrow’s successful professionals will be those who develop the critical job search and career management skills that allow them to navigate the twists and turns of a long and rarely secure work life.”

Martin always challenges me to think about career development issues in new and innovative ways.  Hope he did the same for you.

Comments

[Casey Kleindienst]

As a management professor, I've been teaching the Me "Inc." model to grad and under-grad business students for 10 years. Rarely are new ideas discovered; however, sound principles are often repackaged.

[Alexandra Levit]

@Casey: You are absolutely right. Where do you teach?