Marketers can take steps to stay ready for new career opportunities
Gone are the days of the corporate loyalist and the company man. Their stories of pensions and climbing the ladder now sound as quaint as an episode of “Leave it to Beaver.” The modern employee tells gritty, exigent tales of networking, résumé updates and stealth job searches to stay prepared for inevitable changes.
“My dad worked for the same company for 35 years,” says Liz Ryan, Human Workplace CEO and a Forbes contributor. “But back then, it was all about pleasing your boss. That was not a bad deal because the company took really good care of its employees. [Today], pleasing your boss is like the booby prize. You could please your boss. He could be the happiest guy in the universe, but so what? He doesn’t control your job security. You and he could both be laid off.”
Marketers, especially marketing executives, should know this well: The average CMO lasts only 3.5 years (42 months) at a company, according to Spencer Stuart’s 13th annual CMO tenure study, and there has been a 13% decline in tenure in the past two years. Marketers increasingly find their jobs canceled more quickly than a bad sitcom.
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Hal Conick is a freelance writer for the AMA’s magazines and e-newsletters. He can be reached at halconick@gmail.com or on Twitter at @HalConick.