You are reading the FRACAT Blog Archive (also known as "FRACAT 1.0") for all posts prior to October 29th, 2007.
Are You Prepared For Drastic, Dramatic, Instant Career Change?
I was amazed. I was furious. I was late for work.
As I was getting myself all together for work, my wife had turned on the TV and we watched a replay of the 1st plane hitting the World Trade Center. We then watched the 2nd plane hit live.
This was terrible stuff and I wanted to know more, but I had to get to work.
Little did I know how much those planes crashing into those towers 1,500 miles away from me would affect my career. Companies would lay me and a ton of other people off. A few companies I worked for would just go out of business.
Work would be hard to find for years to come and would drive many technology people into other industries and lives. Like bagging groceries or selling cars or whatever they could find.
The world is an unpredictable place. Anything could happen at any moment that will lead to loss of job, changing of industry landscapes, or just plain shutting down of your company. Are you prepared for drastic, dramatic, instant career change?
DRAMATIC CAREER CHANGE COULD COME FROM ANYWHERE
It doesn’t have to be an act of terrorism that will throw your world upside down. There are so many things in our interconnected world that could change your career forever.
It could be a new law that creates one industry and decimates another. For example, new environmental laws effectively have kept the coal industry from progressing and dramatically restricts where oil companies can drill in the U.S. Fuel economy laws killed the muscle car for a number of years.
It could be new technology that makes your company obsolete. Do you remember CompuServe? They were the AOL of their time. And they were killed when the Internet got popular. And AOL hasn’t done well with the expansion of broadband. Wal-Mart’s new efficiency killed off a lot of Mom & Pop stores and almost killed KMart, Sears, and Target.
It could be foolish (but standard) practices that finally catch up to your industry. - Think energy traders at Enron a few years back. Or sub-prime lending practices at any mortgage broker recently.
It could be a foreign economy changing. Japan went through a 10-year recession that hurt exporters. OPEC policies determine oil & gas prices. China’s recent product safety problems make it more difficult to sell “Made in China” products.
It could be the climate. Floods still drive farmers out of business and increase the cost of raw materials. Earthquakes and other major climate changes drive the price of all computer memory up for a number of years by destroying computer chip fab plants in the far East.
It could be disease. Mad Cow Disease hurt beef exporters. SARS and Avian Flu made it tougher to export / import / sell products from the far East for awhile. Hoof and Mouth disease drove a lot of British ranchers under.
There are any number of things that could change your career forever.
What would you do if your industry (or, at least, your portion of it) stopped functioning today? What would you do if you had to change careers tomorrow?
Make those plans today because drastic, dramatic, instant career change won’t wait for you.
Enjoy the Search!
Dan
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Daniel R. Sweet
Chief Cook-And-Bottle-Washer / Technical Recruiter
FRACAT.com - Free Resume and Career Toolbox
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielrsweet
Call me on Jaxtr: http://www.jaxtr.com/fracat
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