"Job Stability" Isn't Found In Your Job

Job Stability is such a funny term.

We’ve all heard by now that job stability comes from the current job you’re working at.

Maybe they’re big and profitable. Maybe you have a great relationship with your boss. Maybe you have a high-demand skillset. Or maybe you work in a sector that isn’t as “volatile” in the market.

Sure, in a bull market those things may provide you with “job stability”.

But how did that work out in 2023?

Literally the biggest and most profitable companies laid people off. Companies like Meta, Amazon, Google. People who had amazing relationships with their boss but were axed due to right-sizing, downsizing, whatever you want to call it. High-demand skillsets, from PMs to SWEs. “Stable” sectors such as healthcare, pharma, telecom.

Let’s think of “Career Stability” over “Job Stability”

I take a different approach to job stability. I don’t think of it as a “job” that you can stay at for years on end.

I call it “Career Stability” an approach to your career that will keep you consistently employed.

There’s a huge difference between the two.

Let’s take approach one. You’re a SWE at Google, one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world. Or you’re a PM at UnitedHealth Group, the largest healthcare company in the US in a sector that’ supposed to be extremely stable.

You work there for years. For arguments sake, 10+ years. You’re there from 2009 (right after the housing crash) up until 2023. Sure, your job was stable during that bull market. But you get laid off RIGHT NOW.

How stable is your job then?

With my approach, you’ve been constantly taking actions to think about stability in your career, not just one job.

So if you decide to look for a job today, you’ve already gotten a fast start. If you’re laid off today, you won’t be starting behind the 8 ball.

In other words, you won’t let yourself get handcuffed, for whatever reason, to one person, one company, and you always have a plan b.

1: ABN - Always Be Networking

I will talk about networking until I’m blue in the face and you’re sick of me. I don’t care. It’s that important.

Networking is a hedge against your current job. Hopefully you never need to tap into it. But if you’re a victim of a layoff, you’ll be glad you already spent years building it.

The goal of networking should be this: if you got laid off RIGHT NOW, could you call at least 3-5 people to help refer you into a job application today.

If the answer is yes, great. Keep those contacts in touch, build on those relationships, and try to build more of them.If not, then get to work.

For me personally, I have at least 3 companies that will hire me right now if I wanted, and even more that would put me through an interview process. This should be your goal.

2: Diversify How You Network

Networking isn’t just going to conferences and meetups.

Yes, those are extremely important, and was a big way how I built my network early on in my career.

But let’s say you’re crunched on time & resources and can’t make it out to every one of those.

There’s this little thing called social media that makes it that much easier to connect with people.

Start interacting with others. Reply with insightful comments on their posts on twitter and linkedin. Attend some virtual meetups like linkedin live’s and twitter spaces.

After a few back and forth’s with people, slide into the DMs.

If you take away the network I built the past 9 years on my day job, and made me find another job through twitter, I’d already have a handful of people ready to refer me today. This should be your goal.

3: Shoot Your Shot With Decision Makers

At least once per quarter, I aim to meet with one decision maker in my industry.

I do this to build my network in case I ever need it, make sure I’m being properly valued by my current employer, and to flat out just learn new things.

To me, a decision maker is either a hiring manager, director/VP, executive, or CEO.

Yes, I DM directly. A brief intro of what I’ve accomplished, some compliments about their background/company, and why I want to meet.

Doesn’t work all the time, but it works enough to warrant doing it.

Through this, I’ve met 2 CEOs (and many other execs) that would bring me on, or put me through an interview process today.

4: Keep Your Skills High Demand

Don’t get caught lacking with your skills.

Because there’s no point in building a network if there’s no jobs for what you do and if you become out-dated.

For juniors, build out those portfolios and githubs. This is how you add some credibility to your background, de-risk yourself, and stand out against the pack.

For juniors and seniors, stay up to date on the latest versions of your tech stack and anything new in the market that piques your interest.

Remember, at one point in time cobol devs were in extreme high demand. Look at where they’re at now.

5: Always Be Interviewing

Just because you interview doesn’t mean you have to take a job offer if given one.

Consistently interviewing serves 3 purposes (that I touched briefly on earlier): You keep up with your market value; You meet new contacts you can stay in touch with; and you keep your interviewing skills sharp.

Remember, interviewing for a job is completely different than doing the job.

Even if you take 1 interview per quarter, you can see what trends are going on in the market.

What tech stacks are companies prioritizing?

Are interviewing processes changing?

How fast are companies moving so I can anticipate my timing if I ever need to look?

This is all great market intel to keep in your back pocket.

Bonus: Alumni Networks

Don’t underrate the power of alumni networks.

It can be people you actually know and went to school with. Everyone should know what you do for a living, and you should know what they do as well. Anyone in your niche you should be reaching out to catch up with and adding to your network from there.

But you can also reach out to alumni that graduated in different years from you. Although you don’t know them, having the same alma mater turns a cold DM much warmer by having something to relate to. You’ll likely get much more responses reaching out to alumni than randoms on linkedin and twitter.

A guy I went to college with is a full desk recruiter for niche skillsets within the insurance industry. Although we recruit for different things and didn’t know each other that well in college, we regularly talk these days and cross reference our knowledge.

Further, some of my first clients back in the day came from DMing alumni who graduated decades before me because we had something in common.

Closing

Hopefully by now I’ve convinced you that your job stability doesn’t come from your job, but how you view your career from a much higher level.

If you need an honest assessment of your career or network, feel free to schedule an appointment via the link in my bio.