Job Seeker or Skills Holder?

You know the story. You get along great with your boss. You have a long string of positive performance reviews. You get along with your coworkers and have enjoyed steadily increasing responsibility in your job. You are an indispensible part of the company.

Then company profits decrease, the stock price drops, or a major client leaves along with their revenue. Your boss is instructed to let you go and, with great regret, complies.

Regardless of your personal relationships, a corporation hires without joy and fires without remorse. This is how we want our corporations to behave in a free market society. We want them to optimize their resource and deliver profits to the economy. Why, then, are employees always so surprised when they get optimized out of a job? They are surprised because they see themselves as employees, and not as skills holders. When employees are laid off, they become job seekers. When skills holders get laid off, they are still skills holders, but they are now “available.” This is the first of a number of distinctions between the job seeker and the skills holder.

The job seeker needs something. The skills holder has something. The job seeker needs another job to pay the bills. The skills holder can never lose their skills and experience. They don’t settle for a fair salary, they negotiate the best price they can get for their skills and experience. Another way to look at this is that a job seeker exchanges time for money. A skills holder exchanges value for money.

Job seekers believe in loyalty to their employer. Skills holders believe in dedication, but offer little more loyalty than the corporation can provide in return. Five million new job seekers are seeing just how much loyalty a corporation can afford.

Job seekers feel that looking for work while they are employed is a sign of disloyalty. Skills holders realize that their employer is equipped to fire them at a moment’s notice. The paperwork, processes and trained HR professionals are in place and ready to act. Skills holders are ready, too. They monitor their value in the marketplace and build relationships in the places they may want to work.

Job seekers hope to be rewarded for hard work and dedication. Skills holders leverage the skills they gain, expecting higher compensation from the marketplace, even if it means changing companies.

The job seeker is defined by their past work. The skills holder is defined by what they want to become. Skills holders know that they are more valuable as their skills and experience increase, and expect to be compensated accordingly.

Job seekers are expected to be grateful for any job they “hold” and loyal to their employers. Skills holders expect to complete a number of “hiring transactions” as they work toward higher compensation levels.

A Job Seeker is hired to do a job. A skills holder is hired to provide specific value. Job seekers stigmatize themselves when they don’t have a job. Skills holders see themselves as “back in the market,” a valuable asset waiting to serve a new team.

Physically, there is no difference between a job seeker and a skills holder. They both believe that employment is a great way to build professional satisfaction and financial freedom. The difference is simply an individual shift in perception. The job seeker plays into a way of thinking that serves the corporation, a way of thinking that has become outdated with the passing of lifetime employment and the collapse of pension programs. Skills holders realize they are part of a marketplace, and seek to gain an advantage by increasing their value and marketing themselves better.

Which are you: a job seeker or a skills holder?

Photo courtesy http://www.sxc.hu/profile/qute