Preparing Yourself for the Next Career Opportunity

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I hope by now we’ve gotten the message.  Big Daddy (or Mommy) Inc. won’t take care of us anymore.  The social contract between company and employee has long been shredded.  The corporate lifer has gone the way of the dodo bird.  As Dan Pink warned us in his bestseller, Free Agent Nation: “In a climate of heightened risk, attachment is a poor strategy and cradle-to-grave security a false promise.” Emersonian self-reliance updated for the 21st century!

As a result, many of us have begun to think ourselves as our own business, redefining ourselves as “Me Inc.” - even if we’re still drawing a company salary.  We recognize that the individual, not the corporation, has become the fundamental economic unit.  More and more of us are operating as independent contractors (in spirit, if not in fact), managing our own careers, choosing our own projects, and working in non-traditional ways (sometimes at home, sometimes at the coffee shop).  That also means preparing ourselves for the next career opportunity.  Even some of us approaching retirement age are preparing for the next career opportunity, whether for financial reasons or for personal fulfillment.

So what’s required of us to flourish in Free Agent Nation?  What’s required to successfully run Me, Inc.?  Business author Tom Peters, who’s been haranguing his audiences for years on the importance of “Brand You,” answers the question in five words: Be distinct or be extinct.  We have to ask, “What’s the unique value we offer others?  How are we different from everyone else?  What’s our professional identity?” These are the same questions that large and small businesses have to ask themselves in order to thrive in a competitive, global economy. “What’s distinct about us?  How do we stand out from the pack?  What’s our salable difference?”

But it’s not just about discovering and cultivating that unique value. It’s also about packaging, promoting, and selling that value, in a way that’s appropriate to our work.  (A minister, nurse, or guidance counselor might be advised to communicate his or her unique value with more subtlety than a real estate agent, personal injury attorney, or life coach might!) But regardless of what we do, we can’t sit back and assume everyone knows the value we offer.  Not in Free Agent Nation.

There is, of course, a word that captures the essence of this: brand.  (Overused, yes, but still relevant.) What’s your “brand you”?  What’s your “identifying mark”? What’s special about you?  What exactly do you stand for?  What’s the unique value you capably and consistently deliver to your customers?

If you can clearly answer these questions in the marketplace, you’re well on your way to success and fulfillment in Free Agent Nation.  As Marshall Thurber once said, “Different isn’t always better, but better is always different.”

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