Is it possible to limit your options? When you are selecting a college and college classes, it is easy to limit yourself to the minimum needed for an entry-level position. Many stop there while others continue taking classes either to acquire more skills, learn more tools, or even just to keep their minds active or because of personal interest.
Some learn a foreign language, get a teaching credential, become certified in a particular software, or get involved in community service. They never stop learning.
What does this have to do with job skills and employment? In challenging economic times, you will notice one thing—it appears that people with a wide selection of skills are more emploiyable. Similarly, if those with a wide set of skills lose their jobs, they seem to get back to work more quickly and some with a narrow range of speciallization.
Here are two examples. The first individual, Polly, is 62 and is an expert in accounts payable. She’s been with the same company nearly all her life. From the company’s original manual accounting system, Polly has adapted to using Excel to track suppliers, contracts, and payments due. Fine so far, but the company has now found it is much cheaper to outsource theses activities to India. Polly’s full-time job has turned into a 4 hour a week task, as liaison with the company in India. With three more years to go until retirement, Polly has the option of a a lateral transfer with her employer. Except there aren’t any jobs that require her skills. And she hasn’t taken classes or done anything else to learn new skills since her two-year community-college degree in bookkeeping more than 40 years ago. Since Polly enjoys reading and crossword puzzles in the evenings, she has few friends.
How employable do you think Polly is at this point? She is smart and easy to work with, but, at age 62, she needs to be retrained. Is this an option that looks profitable to her company?
Ron, her office mate who has handled the accounts receivable in much the same way, is facing the same dreary employment outlook. Except that Ron’s case is a bit different. He has studied Spanish in the evenings and can speak it fluently, he has traveled extensively in Central America, and he teaches English as a second language at the community outreach center. Ron also coaches the girls’ basketball team at the local middle school. He is well liked by the students and their parents.
Consider Ron’s options for employment. At a time when there are grants for increasing employability of immigrants and high-school graduates in low-income areas, Ron is in a position to teach bookkeeping skills to Spanish-speaking job seekers. If he lists coaching as a skill on his resume and points to teaching ESL classes, it is apparent that he has some experience in coaching and a potential for training, both in English and Spanish. Plus he can call the many, many parents whose children he has coached and ask them who they know who is hiring.
Continue learning. Today, with online education available worldwide and with community college classes offered in the evening and on weekends, it is a good idea to think about where you intend to be in ten years. Will you be like Polly, dependent on one set of career skills, or will you be more like Ron, with a solid network of people as well as a wider range of skills.
Think 20 years ahead. You (and no one else) really knows what the future holds. But it stands to reason that it holds the greater options for the individual who chooses to keep learning, continuously taking classes, developing skills skills, developing tools, and being the flexible candidate employers favor.
