Continuously
in mentor journey I meet a lot of people who are in transition either to the
next stage of their career or preparing to get into a different job. I have
recently interacted with three where I found they faced a common problem and
had to answer a fundamental question: "what is it that I am capable of?”
But what I have found missing is the second part to that question that I think
is even more revealing: "who is likely to value what I can bring".
The difficult thing with being in transition is that you need to
convince others you are capable of this new step. In functional organisations,
if this means taking a promotion within the same function, then it tends to be
easier if you have been "selected" as either a top-performer or part
of a talent pool. The limiting factor though in this case being that you can
only really be considered within the functional framework that the superiors
have defined for you, which may also be limited by what tends to be their
narrow view of capability.
It becomes more complex if one decides to either take a job
outside the previous functional lines, or even in a different organisation or
industry where it may both be a different technical area or even a different
level. How does your previous functional experience show your credibility for
this?
I have my own personal experience with this, having transitioned
industries twice in my career, and changed functional groups within
organisations as part of my growth. How do you even begin to do this in a way
that does not lead you to take backward steps since the new people may be
telling you that you need to "learn" first? How do you find the
kind of opportunities that will play to your strength, and for which you will
be valued.
Since a résumé or CV is the tool most used to identify who we are
and what we can do to the outside world, I asked my mentees to think very
critical how they project what they are capable of or competent in when they
write it. The question I ask is whether they expect the the CV to speak for
them, or they speak for themselves through a package, of which a CV is but a
part. And I ask them to look at a package as broader than what you could write
in a CV.
.
In the complex world we are in, we are finding that tasks increasingly
need people who can think and solve interrelated problems than perform
straight-line functions. In this instance, a list of functional tasks on a CV
will serve to only illustrate the work that one has done. Sadly, a lot of us
assume the reader can then get a sense of the actual capability of the person. In
my experience, nothing could be further from the truth.
Packaging involves the painful process of asking the difficult
questions of one’s potential value. I link this to a comprehensive
understanding of one's competency. Competency can get be proven through
experience, which should not be limited only to that which one gains through a
job function.
Let me
make an example with myself in this instance and the lens that I adopt. I
trained and worked as an engineer, and spent time also in economic development
through working industrial development. Layered with experience is a career in
a financial services organisation that has given me an understanding of both
the process of the flow of money as well as the key issues involved in the
financing of projects. Outside of work, I am involved in a lot of economic
policy formulation work, which gives me interesting perspectives of how issues
of development and financing interface with the economy. It would thus be
foolhardy of me, for instance, if I only defined myself around my job function,
when my overall competency includes this external work and networks through my
non-job activities. I have to package myself around this overall, this
combination of experience and networks, and ensure it is projected in the way I
act, solve problems and pursue business opportunities.
What makes this difficult for many of us is that we tend not to
spend time thinking about ourselves that way, and also allow modesty to
interfere with an honest assessment of what it is that we have done and
achieved. This is further compounded by the narrow focus of recruiters, who
even in this complex world tend to have a very narrow defining of the
competencies required for what they are recruiting for. But their narrow focus
should not be a reason to understate one's competence and limit the scoped of
opportunities..
The first article that I read that gave me a hint of this was
actually one focused on the value of competence for corporations. Written by C.K.
Prahalad and Gary Hamel and published in the Harvard Business Review © in May-June
1990, the article entitled The Core Competence of the Corporation is one of the
most cited HBR articles ever published, and highlights the importance of
companies knowing what is it that they have in terms of capability rather than
just what they functionally do or produce. Imagine if all of us spent time
thinking about ourselves that way! We would not only have a better appreciation
of what we are worth, but also a much wider view of the potential opportunities
that may be available to us.
Packaging themselves and what they offer as value is what I
advised my mentees to focus on doing as they seek new opportunities.
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