Already have a job? Don’t need to look?

I went to a networking meeting where a CxO came and spoke to us, with the idea to give us encouragement and ideas in our personal job search. It was interesting to learn about his company, his perspective of the local economy, etc. But I found one of his comments to be very interesting. He said “… if I were in your situation I would …” Wow. What a powerful statement. I would have thought the same thing about six months ago. But things have changed – my paradigm has shifted.

Why?

One simple reason: I’ve met too many mid and high level managers who were entrenched in their companies, with an immense amount of knowledge, that have been let go. These are folks with advanced degrees, great customer relationships, and “indespensible”. Sound familiar? Is this you?

The funny thing about the presenter is that in his speech, when he said “if I were in your situation” it sounded as if he was saying “I would never be in your situation because I’m too valuable to my company, but if I were…”. And sitting in the room was at least a dozen former executives that were “too indespensible”.

Lesson learned: you are always eligible for termination. It really doesn’t matter who you are, or where you work. So what are you doing to prepare for it?

When I had my last job I wasn’t preparing for a job search. I thought that if I networked I’d be cheating on my company. I didn’t even have a resume ready – it took a week to get it ready enough to send out! I thought if I worked on it (all I had was a company computer), word would get out… and that would be bad. I learned a big lesson – I hope that you – no matter how *secure* you are in your job right now – are preparing for a job search.