It’s a Great Time to Change Jobs

By Gordon Miller, Executive Career Coach

Let me get to the point. The pace of hiring for managers, professionals, and executives has accelerated significantly in Colorado in the last three months. On the average, our clients are landing positions much faster than the published national averages, and much, much faster than 2001-2003

There may have been a time when sticking with your job made sense, particularly in a volatile economy. In my opinion, that’s not the case in 2004. What we have here is the New Business 101. We aren’t going back to the way it used to be. Companies will continue to re-structure to put themselves in a more flexible, fluid position. They will continue to merge, spin-off, and “skinny-up” their infrastructures to become more responsive to the competition and other market conditions.

What does all this mean to you? Clearly, workers are more susceptible than ever to having their department outsourced, or to being replaced by someone at half the pay or ultimately laid-off. And, the risk isn’t higher just because a Fortune 1000 company employs you. It’s also happening with small and mid-sized firms in Colorado.

So why is this a great time to make a change? Simply, most workers are still holding on to their old beliefs. They still think that showing up each day, putting in a hard day’s work, and their past performance will keep them secure.

But that’s not what I’ve learned while recently interviewing hundreds of CEO’s, company owners, and HR executives. They indicated that the “lessons learned” during the last couple years demand a re-vamping of both the number of employees and the needed skill sets of their staff.

Thus, the opportunity to switch. While most employees are standing still, they are actually putting themselves at risk. By seeing this evolution in our economy as a very strategic time to make-a-move, there’s a good chance you will be able to leap frog to a new company or even a new career