Technology and globalization have had a tremendous impact on how we work and where we work.  In this Information Age, people can do business around the world with a laptop and a Blackberry, they can work from home, they can work from Starbucks' while sipping a cup of coffee...they can often work pretty much anytime and anywhere.  In greater numbers we are seeing organizations shift to hiring expert contractors, consultants, and service vendors... all which are acting as free agents.  Yet, according to Beverly Ryle, author of Ground of your own Choosing, the strategies people use for finding work have not changed in accordance with these work place shifts. Beverly believes that we need to think of ourselves as self-employed even if we are working for someone else.  She also says we need to 'throw out the resume and stop networking'.  Now, as someone who's a fan of networking, I wanted to better understand her perspective and, now that I've read most of her book, I do.  First off, she says that people should throw out their resumes because they tend to reflect where people have been and not where they are going.  I would agree with her on this point.  Folks tend to forget that a resume is essentially a marketing tool and that you need to be clear on your goal, what skills you're marketing, and who you're marketing them to.  An employer cares foremost about his/her needs and is looking for evidence that a worker can meet those needs.  If a resume doesn't achieve this aim, it will not hold an employer's interest.  Second, Beverly says to stop networking because it doesn't work.  She happens to define networking as 'self-serving', 'artificial', 'short-term' (something you only do until you get your next job), and focussing on the 'value of a connection based on how well-placed the contact is perceived to be'.  Instead of networking, she supports the notion of 'community-building' which she describes as collegial, mutually beneficial, genuine, and long-term.  What Beverly describes as community-building is what I think of as networking!
 
Now many folks do have difficulty with the notion of networking because they are thinking of it in the same negative terms described in Ground of your own Choosing.  If that's the case, I recommend you purchase Beverly's book.  Not only will it give you a different way of thinking about the 'people connections' you make, it will also offer you a unique perspective on how to search for work in today's fast paced world and tight job market.  I purchased my copy through Amazon.

Until next time…
Sue Posluszny
http://www.careeroptions4me.com
For more information about me and my qualifications, please click here.