713: Still Marketable After 10+ Years at One Company? Career Experiments That Give You the Real Answer

[00:00:00] Scott Anthony Barlow: There's a specific kind of doubt that creeps in after you've been at the same organization for 10 or 15 or 20 years. If you had to leave tomorrow, would anyone actually want to hire you? And would they value the skills that you bring to the table? The hard part is you can't answer this question from where you're at.

[00:00:19] So, how do you honestly tell whether anyone out there would still want you after a decade or two at one organization?

[00:00:27] This is Happen To Your Career. Most people let their career happen to them, falling into jobs by accident, staying longer than they should, and wondering if this is really all there is. But a few people decide to stop settling and do something different. This podcast is for you to take control, get intentional, and design your career to fit the life that you want to build. I'm Scott Anthony Barlow. Welcome to a special Q&A episode, where we're tackling some of the questions that we get over and over.

[00:00:54] We're also gonna cover the answers that even smart, talented people all over the world really struggle to figure out on their own. Joining me today is our executive producer, Micayla. And if you don't already know, she's behind the scenes making everything work, putting the story together, making sure that what we're trying to teach is actually what gets out on the podcast.

[00:01:15] And by the way, if you've loved any of the past episodes, chances are pretty high that she's had her hands on those. Welcome to the front side of the camera, Micayla.

[00:01:24] Micayla Robertson: Hi, Scott. Happy to be here, and excited to dive into the question that was submitted by one of our listeners. So we would love to get your take on this.

[00:01:33] The question that we have is, "I've been at the same company for over a decade. How do I honestly assess whether I'm still marketable?"

[00:01:42] Scott Anthony Barlow: I think this is such a compelling question. Maybe it is the question that so many people experience, at least if they've been in the same situation for a long period of time, whether it's 5, 10, 20, 25 years. You know, if I've been in the same industry, the same organization, the same situation, what tends to happen is people don't necessarily know what else is out there. They're only siloed into the experiences that they can see on the inside. And what that means is they just have no idea. So, as humans, when we don't necessarily know what the truth is, our brains are so, so good at inventing what we think is actually reality.

[00:02:24] And unfortunately, in this particular case, what our brains tend to invent is that it's just not gonna be valuable outside this particular context that I've grown accustomed to. So, you know, to try to answer the question, like, are you still marketable? Are your skills transferable? Would other organizations and other people in organizations actually want to hire you?

[00:02:45] Probably the short answer is yes. We've rarely come across a situation that, you know, that is truly not the case. So I think statistically, the odds are in your favor. That's one side of it. But that doesn't necessarily make it feel any different. So one of the really important things that we often are doing with many of our clients...

[00:03:05] Actually, Micayla, you and I, you know, just got off a recording not, you know, just a little bit earlier today where we were sharing a client story and having, you know, this individual, his name's Tavis, you'll hear him on the episode at some point. He was sharing what he went through, and there's the "Am I marketable?"

[00:03:23] In his case, he was actually coming from law enforcement. Like, that is the definition of something that sounds very, very, very, very specific, right? And he was going through some of these same concerns, same questions, same fears about, "Is there anybody who's actually gonna hire me on the other end?"

[00:03:39] Because he was, in his case, earning pretty substantial amounts of money, even for law enforcement, you know, paid very well, and then also trying to figure out, you know, how do I translate this into a new and different industry and set of experiences? He was particularly interested in tech and just couldn't imagine fully how that could happen.

[00:04:01] So I think a couple of things that we should note here. First of all, Micayla, you've gone through a couple of changes on your own. You've not always been an executive producer in every single situation. You know, when you were going through making changes for yourself, how did you think about this marketable and skillset transfer, and would anybody else even look at it?

[00:04:21] Micayla Robertson: Well, spoiler alert, they're actually gonna hear Tavis' episode tomorrow, so it's the next episode that they'll hear after this. But it's so funny that you ask that question because I actually have years of background in hospitality, and I've worked everything from the front desk to opening hotels, closing hotels, food and beverage, housekeeping, management, all of the things.

[00:04:43] And it wasn't until I realized that every guest that walks into the door is a story that's waiting to be told. Like, at the front desk, you have five minutes to get to know someone's story to make their experience with you even better. It helped me become a better storyteller because I was able to pull out those specific questions that I could then apply to their time with me, which helps me now with the podcast.

[00:05:05] I'm able to pull out specific questions that I can apply to the interviews that everyone listens to.

[00:05:11] Scott Anthony Barlow: So I think that's such a good example for a few different reasons. You know, one of the biggest bottlenecks that we see over and over again, not just with Tavis' story and not just with your story, but, you know, many of the people that we get to help, is trying to create what I would call systematic exposure.

[00:05:28] And the nice thing that happens when you have different types of exposure is it eliminates very narrow thinking. Just for a quick definition here, there's been not just one, but actually many pieces of research around narrow-based thinking versus broad-based thinking. And, you know, think about narrow thinking as what you can see currently and what you have had previous exposure to.

[00:05:57] Our brains really struggle to fill in gaps outside of what we've seen already. So the answer to that is, how do we create exposure in a way that becomes useful to expand what we know and what we've seen? So I think a lot of people come to us, like when we get to work with clients, we have so many people that will show up and say, "Hey, I really think that the best way that you can help is you can actually make some recommendations for me for roles and opportunities that I've never heard of before."

[00:06:29] And while that's to some degree true, we can absolutely do that, that's actually not the best way to gain that type of systematic exposure that I'm talking about. So one way that you can do that is by identifying what are some of the areas that you are specifically interested in, and then you can run very low lift experiments, what we would call a career experiment.

[00:06:55] And the idea is very simple. Like, how can I go and learn what I think is out there and validate is what I think true, actually true? And in most cases, you learn it's actually much more expansive. It's much different. It is much more nuanced than how you might have imagined.

[00:07:15] One type of experiment that's really, really common, a lot of people have heard this if you listen to many episodes, we talk about the social Goldilocks or what we call having test drive conversations.

[00:07:24] And the idea is you go and have a series of short conversations with people, not for the intent of getting a job, but for the intent of learning about their situation, their organization, the roles that they've been in, their personal experiences. And then you can start to quickly over, not too many conversations, you know, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 15, be able to start to gather what are some of those similarities, what are some of those differences that you're hearing, and start to organize that in a way where you can say,

[00:07:56] "Oh, yeah. You know what? I'm interested in change management." And turns out, change management actually benefits from having people that are, these background of experiences or this type of, you know, personality or this type of exposure or this type of training. And, you can start to assess how does that line up with what it is that I think that I want.

[00:08:19] And in doing so, then that helps you build a better idea of how what you have already in terms of skills, experiences, how that might be transferable, and therefore building confidence around whether or not somebody's going to view what you've done and what you have and the assets that you bring to the table as marketable.

[00:08:39] So really, really long way to be able to accomplish a few different things, but it doesn't have to be super complex. We can make it super easy, and that can be starting out with a simple series of conversations to prove what we think is true versus what is actually true.

[00:08:56] Micayla Robertson: Well, I have a question for you, Scott, because I've learned that as you are talking to clients and as you are conducting these podcast interviews and, really, helping people transform their careers, when we talk about marketable skills that are transferable, what's the difference between marketable skills and marketable strengths?

[00:09:16] Scott Anthony Barlow: Marketable skills and marketable strengths. Well, that's a really, really great question, and I think a lot of people tend to confuse strengths with skills. So, we have a few different episodes about this, which we can absolutely link up in, you know, in the show notes and description. But the basic differences between strengths and skills, think about skills, are what you see on the surface.

[00:09:40] If you imagine like the, you know, the iceberg, and there's a lot of, you know, iceberg analogies, but let's pretend that we're using the iceberg analogy here. Then skills are what you see on the surface. You know, I'm good at golf. I can manipulate spreadsheets. I've learned how to input certain types of formulas in spreadsheets.

[00:09:59] I've learned how to work with AI. Whatever it is, those are the things that we see and experience on the surface. Strengths are very different in that they are below the surface. They're what's causing skills to sometimes, in certain circumstances, if you have a strength, you might be more predisposed to be able to do certain skills.

[00:10:22] For example, this one client that I'm thinking of, and he was really great at leading projects, just phenomenal at leading projects. And also, you know, if you delved into his strengths, then he was absolutely obsessive about organization– organizing things in the physical space, organizing things in his mind, organizing in a digital space. And what ended up happening is that on one hand, like his family and the people who knew him the best say, "oh, yeah, that's just who he is. That's, uh..."

[00:10:58] And they would say it almost jokingly like, he's OCD, basically. And what people would experience at work is they'd wanna be on his projects when he was assigned projects because they were so incredibly well organized that it just ran very, very, very well. So yes, he was... You know, he could operate the apps for project management.

[00:11:19] He could do all of the other skills that were needed. He could communicate effectively. But it was coming from this place where it was layered over the top with his strengths that were this deep-seated part of who he was, needing to see things organized in a certain way.

[00:11:35] And that's what was really causing him to become quickly very good at those different skill sets. That's one example. You can think about strengths as the truest sense of who you are as a person, and we can learn skills, but strengths are developing who we are and evolving who we are.

[00:11:52] So that would be the main difference. So when we talk about marketable strengths, I wouldn't say that that's so much of a thing. It would be much more how do we work to understand our strengths and then try to set up the situations that we're putting ourselves in so that we get to spend more time utilizing who we are as a person as opposed to looking for a job necessarily or work that really aligns with my strengths.

[00:12:19] The difference is subtle, but a lot of people feel like, "Hey, if I can just understand my strengths, then I can go find a job." And actually, the research says not true. Doesn't work like that. What does work is us deeply understanding who we are and deeply understanding our strengths, and then working to maneuver within this particular type of environment or situation so that we then get to leverage more of those strengths. That's what's effective.

[00:12:44] Hey, by the way, if you love this style of episode, I would encourage you to drop me an email directly, scott@happentoyourcareer.com. Put 'Question' in the subject line, and you might just see your question on a future episode. By the way, if this episode helped you in any way, we'd definitely encourage you to, click follow, click subscribe, but also to share this with someone who's in the middle of figuring all of this out.

[00:13:07] Somebody probably needs to hear this in this way right now. It also helps us to be able to spread the word and get more people into work that fits them. I'm Scott Anthony Barlow. I'm out.