Are you good at what you do?

Published on Jun 17, 2021 by Matt Bud, The FENG
Evolving Job Market

It is not well known, but there are very few people in the world who actually know how to do things. I would suggest to all of you that, yes, I’m talking about YOU.

As the world slowly crawls out from under all the changes that have happened as a result of COVID-19, opportunities will be appearing in record numbers for the well experienced people who populate our networking group.

Since the beginning of 2020 through only recently, people have been afraid to quit their jobs for fear of not being able to find another one. I would suggest that this was not an unfounded fear.

Well, guess what? All bets are off. The economy is restarting. People are more confident. And, the “quit rate” is exploding. Let me add to this “problem” the idea that many baby boomers couldn’t find jobs last year and decided to permanently retire.

And if all this wasn’t bad enough for employers, there are lots and lots of employees who don’t want to return to the office, and if forced to do so, will quit.

The world of remote work has exploded in the past 18 months. I have seen folks recruited, onboarded and working without ever meeting their team in person. How is this possible? Well, the reason people have typically worked in offices is because that’s where the equipment was.

With most accounting software in the cloud these days, you can work from anywhere. Even in my small consulting practice we use QuickBooks Online and I can and do have the ability to work from anywhere. These changes were all possible before the pandemic, but no one thought about them that way. Even back in the 1990’s when I worked for The Thomson Corporation, we had laptops and were trading files over the company’s intranet. If I had more than a dial up modem, I could have worked from home and no one would have ever known because my boss at the time traveled 4 weeks out of 5 and he and his whole team also traveled a lot. Many days in an office of 20, it was just me and the receptionist.

Dramatic change is not for the faint of heart. It is best handled by those of us who have “been there and done that.” And, that’s all of you.

So, now is the time to begin redoubling your networking activities. Dust off your list of “close friends” and start dialing for dollars. Sure, some of the opportunities will be for interim assignments filling in for those who have quit. But, don’t be put off. One of my very successful models since beginning my consulting practice has been “tryout to permanent.”

Take a chance. Be open minded. Some of these “temporary” assignments may last the rest of your career.

Regards, Matt