If you get the Hendrix reference in this article’s title, then you’re probably the target demographic for this post.
The modern worker has arrived at a place entirely unknown to the generations before him. Formal dress is a relic. Telecommuting has redefined the boundaries of the office. With the development of our services economy, a greater share of the workload is handled by consultants. With the realization of globalization, a greater share of the workload is outsourced to the emerging nations. All the while turnover has increased and employer-employee loyalty has fallen off.
Fifty years ago, your first job out of school was a commitment. The dream was to work your way up through the ranks– from a desk or production floor, to an office, to a corner office– and then to retire at 55 with a pension and a house in the suburbs. The word ‘career’ was a straight line connecting these predictable dots. Today, these long, linear paths have all but disappeared. For my generation, a career will be a best-fit curve that describes a series of discreet jobs. The modern notion of a career is a long series of overlapping jobs and experiences loosely tied together along a theme.
But this transition has been neither slow nor steady. As a result, we have a class of job seekers with focused experience from a linear career cut short. The number of firms that could truly make use of their deep institutional knowledge is small. Further, their salaries are too high for firms outside of their immediate field of experience to consider gambling on them. Worse, many of them vie for disappearing middle management positions, claiming titles like Vice President, Director, and Division Manager.
They’re over the hill, but not yet out to pasture. Fortunately, our modern economy has a place for these folks in its scores of freelancers and consultants.
I’m not talking about the McKinseys or Bains of the world, but more the Booz Allen Hamiltons and the IBMs. Large, established consultancies that do functional, task driven work. These types of shops are driven more by experienced hires and less by Harvard’s class of 2008. Further, they often offer flexible work arrangements for those who have left 50-hour work weeks in the dust. Between the two of them, Booz and IBM currently list almost 1200 job openings on their recruiting sites.
Of course, the majority of people that I’ve talked to have avoided the institutional path and opted instead for an entrepreneurial one. Where does a 50-year-old with 25 years of narrow experience go once his company can’t afford to pay him any more? For many, the answer is “not very far.” Many experienced workers have been able to reinvent themselves as consultants, working heavily with the same companies that they have always worked with. Like their experiences, their networks are narrow but deep. Deep topical knowledge, combined with an established network of mid-to-senior level contacts, make fertile ground for a mutually-beneficial consulting relationship.
It was 1967 when Hendrix sang Are You Experienced? to an unsuspecting crowd at the Monterey Pop Festival (I wasn’t even born yet). Things done changed since then, but there is still a premium paid on experience in the job market. Maybe consulting or freelancing is the best way for you to collect.
