Are you one of those high flyers – whose success and growth seems to be a liability ?
At least during your efforts of job search. You are a fast tracker with a small career span, and are already too expensive for employers. Moving up in the corporate hierarchy and your increasing pay packets can present interesting challenges when you are on a job search mode.
If you fit the description above, you will suddenly notice:
- Number of employers who can afford your compensation and the expected jump – starts reducing day by day.
- Available job opportunities that are after you & employers willing to hire you may not interest you.
- Opportunities and employers that interest you , may not be interested in you – and this has nothing to do with your competence levels.
Lets look at some typical cases, where in your competence looks like a liability:
Scenario I:
Most of the time, a fast track career with any company – specially if you join the company from the campus – leads to a mix of experiences, strong experiences that cannot be appreciated by most of the employers. (Ex. If you are in the HR function – and over your years of experience have become specialized in Talent Management or Compensation – you will be expensive and a prime property for job market but there may not be lots of opportunities for you in the market. Many company don’t have a Talent Management or Compensation vertical.)
Scenario II:
There may also be a case where in you get branded with an industry and other industries may not consider you since most hiring managers prefer to hire people with – relevant industry experience. (Ex. Similarly, if you have been rising fast in retail sales, B2B sales in a Banking or Finance company, your existing company can respect your experience and it is going to be difficult for you to cross domains. )
Scenario III:
There may be possibilities that you would have engaged on high profile projects, that may seem to be your strength, but may absolutely be irrelevant for a prospective employer. (Ex. At times young campus hires end up getting exposed to multi million dollar projects, and implementations in their company.) You may have been lucky enough to be given an opportunity to work on a M & A deal, or a new business incubation project in your company, but not many companies need that kind of experience. In fact some of your prospective employers may be too surprised and shocked to believe that you with your relatively small experience would have been a part of all those fancy assignments.
We have seen a number of such cases amongst people we work with and interact with, and well over the years the category of people who are “too expensive” or “too qualified” for available jobs is increasing by the day.
- What do you do in such cases ?
- How to you plan to land up a suitable job opportunity ?
You are welcome to share your comments / thoughts / experiences and ideas with us.
Praveen is the Founder & Principal Consultant of KHEdge, a boutique HR & Business Process Advisory firm. Over last 15 years he has advised & worked with promoters, founders, business leaders, HR leaders in areas of - Business Strategy, HR Strategy, Organisation Design etc.
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