Wednesday, June 15, 2011

One strategy for career longevity

At my first full-time job one of my coworkers took me aside and said "Scott, to stay around here you have to make yourself indispensable." I asked how and his response was "Do a task that no one else can or wants to do that is important to the company. Look around you, no one here will train you on what they do because they want to make sure they are the only one doing it."

No really, that is a horrible way to run a business and if everyone at the company is working like that chances are it will collapse due to loss of a key person/people. But there is something to the argument that if you know something that others at the company do not then you have a shot at being retained above other people.

So occasionally ask yourself what you do that someone else cannot or what the company cannot easily replace. If you cannot think of something find out what only one other person in the company can do and learn that or volunteer for a task that is essential.

No comments:

Post a Comment