An Out of Work Executive’s Revelation on Finding Work
1/8/2018
In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s American radio and television audiences were entertained by a successful drama series “Have Gun Will Travel”, which followed the exploits of its main character “Paladin”, a gentleman gunfighter, who traveled the American Old West as a mercenary selling or freely giving his problem-solving skills to those in need of his special skillset.
While not all “mercenaries” were western gentlemen history is filled with “Paladins” or soldiers of fortune. The Ten Thousand Greeks, Samurai Warriors and Flying Tigers all provided valuable skills in exchange for money or other recompense. These groups were highly sought after by governments, monarchies, religious leaders and landowners to assist their benefactors in controlling power and property. That was until their individual skills were deemed too diminished to protect the interests of their benefactors.
Fast forward to current corporate America and look at your relationship with your employer. Does the “mercenary concept” ring a bell?
As an executive with a national corporation, and having played the game and climbed the ladder, I knew the rules of engagement. But when I found myself out of work, restructured out under the guise of a strategic change, I defaulted to the old way of thinking. “I have valuable skills, so it will be easy for me to find a job” and that idea became my mantra.
I began by quest by implementing every avenue of job search from networking, to internet job sites and job posts, headhunters and cold-calling.
Funny that even though I knew how the game is played I found myself stuck in the old belief that Talent Managers were chained to their computers reviewing every application and resume waiting for that one candidate and my resume would be the beacon that they were looking for.
My pilgrimage in finding the next holy workplace found me detailing my abilities and successes to Talent Managers half my age, trying to justify that my age was not a hindrance to what I could provide to them. But after 12 months of receiving the patented “Your skills are exceptional, but we have decided to move in another direction” letters, it was clear that finding employment the old way would be an effort in futility.
Now to my revelation. As a child my brother and sister and I would listen to our parents talk about the days of radio. Curious I found some rebroadcasts of those shows and soon became a fan. The ability to conjure up images of the story and its characters became intoxicating.
After each frustrated day of looking I would lay in bed at night wrestling over how I was going to find that next opportunity. To stave off any complete depression I would listen to those old radio programs for some background diversion. One night a broadcast of “Have Gun Will Travel” was aired.
In listening to the show, the concept of a “mercenary” combined with my need for recompense and what I already knew about the hiring process came together. Analyzing the concept of the show I realized that nothing has really changed with regards to how corporate America looks at their employees.
Businesses operate under basic business principles. Provide a quality product or service, make a profit and grow market share. Simplified, a business model has two sides; the money and the employee. How these two interact to support strategic corporate goals is really all that matters.
The World’s economy is in a rebound. With President Trump’s implementation of a pro-business economic policy, the US is experiencing an economic upturn and as reported by the U.S. Department of Commerce, “Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the third quarter of 2017 and in the second quarter, real GDP increased 3.1 percent”. https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/glance.htm.
With this growth corporate America has found itself challenged in finding qualified candidates to fill expanding new roles. In a December 11, 2017 economic news release, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that there were 6 million job openings in the U.S. economy, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm,.
The “Recession of 2007” severely affected the world’s economy, resulting in deep losses in both corporate and personal balance sheets, creating negative economic growth and high unemployment rates. Workers who stayed employed due to losses in their personal balance sheets forestalled the natural business cycle of older workers retiring giving inexperienced workers a chance to learn a valuable skill.
Many Talent Managers believe that this gap in qualified workers exists due to the “hangover” from the forestalled employee replacement cycle. So, in simple terms “Open jobs + unqualified candidates = opportunity”, but for whom?
If my belief that the “mercenary” theory had any real merit I needed to put it to the test and find that someone needing someone like me, a person with skills to fill a gap until younger and longer-term soldiers were added.
A concept is only as good as the data that will support it, but thankfully we have access to all the data that anyone needs, so I rolled up my sleeves and started my research.
Where many out of work executives err in their search is in considering the geography of their opportunities. Essentially, being unwilling to incorporate a relocation option. Let’s face it relocating away from family and friends is not desirable but when one’s bank account and financial retirement plan takes a hit, and you start putting yourself further away form the ability to permanently walk away from the conflict, any option must be part of the equation. If my plan was to work I had to explore all options.
There were obvious limitations as to desirable locations but if I was truly interested in gaining a job my research had to have no boundary’s. Applying a wide geographical search with industries that were a staple of the economy, that offered products and services that everyone needs but experiencing high employee turnover due to tight margins and low pay I found a benefactor. I did have to relocate but we all need to live somewhere and to be able to pay our bills.
So, while I may not call myself “Paladin” and may not be a gentlemen gunfighter I do refer to myself as a “mercenary” ready to do battle in support of power and property but mainly in support of me.
McFurdStatistics: Posted by McFurd — Mon Jan 08, 2018 6:56 pm
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