You Snooze, You Lose …

You’ve heard that cliche, right? Have you, though, considered what it might mean as it relates to your career?

I’ve had a few conversations with prospects lately that leave me shaking my head. They contacted me, so they know how important packaging and positioning is. Many read my blog and know that I evangelize practicing good career management strategies on an ongoing basis.

They know I advocate preparing to move long before actually needing to move. The 20th Executive Job Market Intelligence Report from Execunet reflects the average executive transition time at 5.7 months. My suggestion is always to plan on 9 months. Which means, at least a year out is the time to begin doing the things you need to do in order to make a move on your time frame. Actually, you should always be doing those things, but I digress.

I’m writing my article for the June issue of Futures in Finance, and here’s an excerpt from the “The 5 Worst Things You Can Do in Your Career,” …

2. Become unemployed

All things being equal, you have the same skill sets, contributed the same impacts, and hold the exact same strengths while you were employed and even while standing on the curb and looking back on your last day of employment. But the one thing that you now have is the black mark of unemployment and the one thing you’ve lost is the very effective power of passive positioning.

You might think it can’t happen, but it can. In fact, it does. And there is nothing short of shell-shocked paralysis when it does. Losing the power of passive positioning is huge, and hugely detrimental to a smooth career transition.

To quote another appropriate cliche … please, “don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”