The Best Strategy for Maximum Job Security
Hint: you want options.
Job security doesn't exist in data/analytics (or any industry).
Layoffs everywhere and your company isn't coming to save you.
The burden falls on your shoulders. It's your responsibility to build job security in your career and to pick a strategy that sets you up for long-term success.
You want to be last person on the list to get fired. If you know layoffs are coming, you want to jump ship before you're canned. But if you do get fired, you want to the ability to get another job as quickly as possible.
You want Career Optionality.
The Career Optionality Strategy
The best way to have job security in your career is to have options.
Optionality gives you the power to pivot in any direction and make positive career changes based on your circumstances. You want the ability to move in any direction: to get promoted, to step down into an easier role, to move laterally to another position, or to get a new job.
More options means more job security.
You should be on a path that increases your options, not limits them.
The path:
Getting a front-line leadership position.
Leadership positions = optionality
Optionality is baked into leadership positions.
Positions in data, like Manager, Team Lead, and Lead Analyst, automatically give you more options and help you build the skills that increase your capability. Not only do you have the technical skills to do the basics, you will learn critical leadership skills like gaining influence, building relationships, project management, coaching, delegation, etc.
Leaderships skills ensure you can be effective anywhere.
Leadership skills are the most transferrable
Once you expand your skill set to include leadership, you can use those skills in any job, any industry, or any company.
You will always need to influence people, help a team succeed, build strong relationships, and take ownership. You're expected to build these skills when you become a leader, so getting that leadership position puts pressure on you to grow.
Leadership positions act as a forcing function for you to build the skills that maximize your career optionality.
Instead of trying to build these skills on your own, get promoted to a position where you're forced to build them.
Leadership allows you to move in any direction
Optionality is mobility.
You want the ability to move around when the situation calls for it.
Having a font-line leadership position allows you to move in any direction.
You can:
- Move DOWN to an individual contributor role.
- Move UP to Sr. Manager or Director role.
- Move SIDEWAYS to another leadership role.
Very few roles have this kind of optionality.
Leaders have movement.
Leaders have optionality.
Leaders have security.
This is how you build a fulfilling career in the moment and an antifragile career in the future.