My advice for women planning their career - PART 1: THE NEW RULES

In my role I get to speak to a lot of young women that are currently planning their career. When they ask me for my best advice I think that they should focus on three things:

1.       the new rules that apply today and that are critical to understand

2.       the self-confidence it takes to be successful in today’s hypercompetitive market

3.       new attractive opportunities  I see on the horizon - particularly for women

I will discuss each point in a separate article on my blog.

The NEW RULES I am talking about are driven by new economics, globalization and by the technology revolution we have seen in the past 10 years or so.

First and foremost women need to understand that this is not our parents’ job market anymore – the dynamics have fundamentally shifted.

Job security is a concept that no longer exists – and careers are not built in a linear fashion according to a pre-fabricated plan. Constant training and building new appropriate skills will provide the best job opportunities. I tell women to do whatever it takes to keep their qualifications fresh and marketable – then focus on  constantly adding value — develop capacities that cannot easily be outsourced or off-shored or handled by a robot or a computer.

Today people need to help shape their job, develop their job and define their job – and folks need to prepare themselves for change and more change as they will be judged according to their ability to adapt to all the change. People should not shy away from disrupting products, processes or services – real progress is not an extrapolation of the past.

My advice is that successful employees need to think more like innovators or entrepreneurs – it is about taking charge, dealing with uncertainty, lots of change, taking risk and being adaptable to ever changing market conditions.

So again, companies are looking for people who not only have the critical thinking skills to do the value-adding jobs that technology can’t but also people who can invent, adapt and reinvent their jobs every day, in a market that changes faster than ever.

Tomorrow I will talk about self-confidence. Stay tuned.