Employment Security, Not Job Security
The difference between job and employment security
Job security is elusive in today’s employment market—but you knew that. Even though we may all know there is no job security, too often, we don’t think about what it takes to gain employment security.
Job security is gone. We’re all temporary workers and must constantly understand when our position will end and be ready to find our next gig. But we’re not there yet.
Employment security and stability trump (sorry) everything
I remember the song “Looking for love in all the wrong places.” Employment security and stability don’t come from something or someone else. It comes from ourselves.
What we have done is expect companies to recognize our hard work and be loyal to our needs. Instead, companies use our job skills to help them meet their corporate goals–not ours.
And that’s OK.
The problem is we project our need for job stability and security onto the company when the company has no interest in our stability and security. It is like asking the asteroid on a collision course with Earth to care about us and change direction.
If we can’t have job security, what will getting employment security take?
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We need employment security, not job security
The first step to becoming more self-reliant is to change our focus from getting security from a job to getting security in our ability to get employment. This is a perspective change–we can be employed, and a company will be fortunate to have our skills to help them with their corporate goals.
We need to start our interview answers with “I helped the company to….” instead of those desperate answers we are now giving because we see our employment security through the job and not our ability to get work.
It means we must consistently build our job skills, know what motivates us to do the work and know what type of team we want to work with to get a great corporate experience. It also means we must build our business network and know how to answer interview questions.
Companies won’t help you become more self-reliant in your quest for employment security and stability. I can help, of course, but the first step we all need to take is to recognize that our goal is employment security and all that implies. Not security from a job that comes from a company that doesn’t care about who we are or what we do.
Be a Cubicle Warrior,
Scot