2020-08-03 13:36:25

Over the weekend, the information of candidates who established contacts for the first time in 2012-2015 was screened from the talent database. After a quick review of the career development trajectory and salary changes of some candidates who kept in contact for a long time, the following phenomena were found:

• Most people in the traditional closed industry, regardless of whether they are in the original company or the new company, have no significant changes in their positions, doing the same thing, and the salary has reached the upper limit of the same function positions in the industry.
• A few years ago, some candidates who only considered leading a team or a larger scope of responsibilities did not get a promotion in the company, and they still did not do what they wanted after switching jobs.
• Some candidates who used to work smoothly in the company said that they would not consider any opportunities at the time, and there was no substantial difference between the job search and the positions that were available a few years ago.
• Some middle-level and senior managers over 40 have disappeared from the active talent market. In the original organizational structure, people who were only one step away from those positions were not succeeded. On the contrary, the successors are managers in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain and even in other industries.

Combining the above phenomena, through this post, I will communicate with you about occupational bottlenecks (for Buddhist employees or those with mines at home, you can skip it). The premise of discussing this topic is that although positions and salaries are different, every job is worthy of respect.

Every time I communicate with a candidate, I will ask him what his expectations for his next job are. Most people replied, "I don’t have people now, I hope to see the position that leads the team", "I’m a manager now, but I also look at the manager. The position is meaningless" and so on. After a detailed chat, I found 3 common problems:

• Candidates do not know what position is suitable for them, or in addition to the management team, what alternative path is suitable for them.
  I have met scientists with very solid technology and very friendly technical sales. They have obvious advantages at the level of professional skills. However, personality, communication, ability to handle complex interpersonal relationships, upward management ability, strategic thinking, etc. and team management job requirements gap.

I roughly categorize the above factors into two categories: those that are difficult to change (such as personality and values) and those that can be trained (such as communication, thinking, and behavior). If the former is the dominant reason, we can broaden the boundaries of professional skills through functional transformation, such as extending R&D to application or product markets, and extending sales to business development. This process is also a process of changing the way of thinking and behavior. When you can integrate industry chain resources, lead the commercialization of new product technologies, and discover profit growth points suitable for the company's business, your vision, thinking, and value to the company will naturally increase. This is why the company is willing to spend millions of annual salary to hire an unemployed BD or marketing manager; if you have the potential for team management, the dominant reason lies in the latter. In addition to changing functions, you may have to evaluate whether the current company The culture and mechanism limit your growth. The improvement of soft skills is largely limited by environmental factors, because people are inert, and many people may never realize the hidden problems that already exist, or do not know the gap between themselves and their target positions. where.

2)   Candidates ignore the importance of "half-step" promotion. How many people in the workplace can achieve a three-year promotion? When you have been stagnating for a long time in the company and there is no promotion opportunity in the market that can take you to the next level, what should you do? In an employment environment where the overall number of job seekers exceeds the job demand, employers usually only consider candidates who have met or are close to the job requirements. Therefore, more and more people come across the following options: a). Lower than the market average job-hopping increase; b). The job title is reduced, and salary increases reasonably; c). The job title is improved, and the salary increase is lower than the market average job-hopping increase; d). With a team changed to a team without a team, the salary increases reasonably. Some people will say, then I might as well wait. Judging from the results, many people have waited for a few years, and have not even waited. But the cruel aspect of the domestic workplace is that career development is based on the timeline. Unless you are the boss, it is difficult to break out of this rule. Faced with the opportunity to improve "half-step", it is recommended to think about the following questions:

• Where is the gap between the position and the ideal position?
• Can you get the most needed skills from it?
• Will there be more choices when changing jobs next time?

If you can achieve the goal of half a step forward after 2-3 years of hard work on the new platform, the return will be much higher than the stagnation in the original company; even after 2-3 years, the position still does not meet expectations, but you I have also obtained the skills or vision needed to be closer to the target position, coupled with the appropriate increase in salary, and then pay attention to external promotion opportunities, the success rate will be higher. Appropriate career transition is necessary in career planning, and it should be done sooner rather than later.

3)  In good times, only focus on immediate benefits and ignore career planning and potential career development risks. Many times I ask candidates why they don't consider this position, and the answer is just "I have nothing wrong with me now, the boss is also good, and I don't look at any opportunities." Many people still think that only when the company can't mix up is the time to quit. The logic itself is not a problem, but the question is how the good times come and how long it can last. We might as well think about:

• Is the current good times due to the general trend of the industry or because your boss takes care of it?
• If the market is bad one day or the company's organizational structure is adjusted, can this good times continue?
• Compared with other people doing the same thing in the company or in the same industry, what are your advantages?
• In addition to being smooth, do you really continue to improve your competitiveness?
• When you leave your current company, what are your own facts that can convince other employers?

There is also a special situation. For business function positions, many leading companies in the industry do not limit industry experience when recruiting, but the degree of rigor is similar to selecting management trainees from batches of fresh graduates. Some people immediately shook their heads when they heard about changing industries, saying that they would waste the personal network resources they had accumulated before; some people who had encountered bottlenecks in their industry tried, but found that they could not meet the job requirements. The more you are in a traditional closed industry, the more you should focus on improving your core competitiveness, instead of drifting with the flow. The so-called resources are actually just icing on the cake for mature large companies.

In the workplace, there is never a shortage of people who work hard, and there are many uncontrollable factors. We cannot change others, but we can understand ourselves and customize a career plan that suits us.