Why simply doing your job just isn’t enough anymore
Posted on February 3, 2012
Filed Under Employment, Keeping your Job, Recession, The Workplace | 1 Comment
In one of my earliest blog posts, I characterized the job search as a ruthless war of all against all. Suit-clad, briefcase wielding, warriors battling it out, constantly attempting to eke out the competition through an adept application of cunning and practiced professionalism. Although we have always found signs that this war exists in the workplace, the stakes are higher now—the war more furious, with the workplace looking less like a group of individuals working toward a collective goal, and more like a chess board. In the same way that the rhetoric and tone of our politicians has, in recent years, taken on an almost (or, rather, exclusively) venomous tone—amounting to “political brinksmanship”—employees must today stake their claim, and demonstrate bold tenacity to get ahead. Showing up and simply doing your job, settling into the background, simply won’t cut it anymore. In a few words, you have to get out in front. (As an aside on today’s political discourse, the mud slung today, in print, online, and coating the halls of Congress is hardly comparable to the gruesome, toxic sludge politicians hurled at one another in the early days of our republic—check it out.)
“Marketing guru” Seth Godin recently exclaimed, “If you’re an average worker, you’re going straight to…the bottom.” Vivian Giang, writing for Business Insider, recently observed how the cultural malaise produced by the economic recession has had an interesting, even if expected side effect. A scarcity of jobs has ratcheted up competition for jobs, which has, in turn, created a workforce besieged by uncertainty, and has lead employers to be more selective about their workforce. Translation: getting ahead can no longer be compared to a rat race—it’s a horse race. “If you’re the average person out there doing average work, there’s going to be someone else out there doing the exact same things as you, but cheaper,” says Giang. So what does this mean for the average employee? “The days when people were able to get above average pay for average work are over.”
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[...] Why simply doing your job just isn’t enough anymore By Ryan Harding repost from APUS Career Services Blog [...]