“Technologies crisscross industries and travel incredibly fast.” – Peter Drucker
This week’s column was supposed to be Part 2 of Career Transitioners. However, given the recent news, CTP2 will need to wait. Instead let’s talk about the big picture driving all that transition. Let’s (quickly) mourn the old economy.
In the month of March, the following headlines triggered a tectonic shift in the marketplace:
Thursday March 15 – iHeartMedia Files for Chapter 11
Thursday March 15 – Toys R Us Is Closing All Its Stores
Monday March 19 – Claire’s Files for Bankruptcy
None of this news is shocking. We’re all firmly aware that our lifestyles, from how we shop to how we consume content, is now digital. What is jarring is that within four days we saw the collapse of radio and retail as we know it. This is just how quickly the market is moving today.
Cleveland is not immune to the news. In February, we read that a private equity firm would be buying 60% of American Greetings. As with any acquisition, especially of that magnitude, change follows, typically in the form of overhead reduction.
Collectively, all this February and March news hit me personally. I began my two-decade Corporate America career working full time for Claire’s and I ended it working for American Greetings. In between, I interned at a radio station then owned by Infinity/CBS Radio, the direct competitor of Clear Channel (now iHeart) and while at both VTech and Rand McNally, I worked directly with Toys R Us, developing award-winning products and merchandising for that key retailer.
And so there it was. Just like that, twenty years of my career became obsolete.
I scratched my head on this thinking two things:
1. I’m grateful that, nearly 10 years ago, after my layoff, in the hardest, darkest and fiscally most uncertain times, I had the wherewithall to reinvent myself professionally. It hasn’t been an easy decade, full of all kinds of ups and downs, but it was absolutely the right decision.
2. Two generations of employees must quickly find new ways to make themselves relevant in an economy where youth is associated with cheaper and more tech-savvy labor.
As I talk to friends, clients, fellow biz owners, former MBA students and industry leaders, the common themes I hear are:
1. It’s really tough for those 40+, especially women, to receive well-paying job offers.
2. It’s essential to showcase industry relevance via the most current and tailored classes and seminars.
3. It’s critical to work your network in an intelligent and thoughtful way.
4. It’s a good time to start your own thing.
My prediction is that over the next five years we’ll see an explosion of new and exciting businesses, with seasoned, disciplined and well-networked biz owners who know how to solve problems and deliver results. I also genuinely hope that more progressive firms will hire for talent vs. with bias.
One thing is for sure: that if only the past decade of our work career is what’s relevant to today’s new economy, then all of our resumes are about to get much shorter.
Alexsandra (Alex) Sukhoy. I’m a writer, marketer and career coach at Creative Cadence LLC, and teach business students at CSU. You can find my first business book, Date Your Career: The Longest Relationship of Your Life, on Amazon. I’m currently writing a film noir screenplay called Cleveland City.
Twitter: @creativecadence. #letstalk