Succeeding in a “Final Jeopardy!” World
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Yes, I’ll admit it. Upon seeing this month’s topic, my first association was Jeopardy! Perhaps it was the listing of categories in search of answers, but in a flash, I was thinking, “l’ll take re-tooling for 100, Alex.” And in my rapid free association, the answer “commodities” came to mind, quickly followed by, “What do you call transferable skills?”

As a career coach, I’ve long believed that one’s ability to identify transferable skills was the biggest part of the battle in conveying value to a potential new employer. And perhaps, at one time, it was. No more.

Today, any effort to re-tool, re-focus, or re-organize your job search and career management, means giving up past career models so you can re-align your efforts to meet today’s reality. And today’s reality calls for much more than a bullet list of transferrable skills put at the top of a resume and regurgitated in a cover letter.

Even if they hope against hope that that the old approach will work just one last time, I think many people know this.

You need only look at career advice columns to see big themes like re-invent, re-focus, re-launch, and re-brand – often accompanied by a list of five to ten things you should do now. Sometimes, the advice is good. More often it’s shallow. For the new reality is that job search and career management has grown in complexity. It’s no longer your skills, your credentials, your track-record – or even your brand. Nor is it your ability to package all of that in a clever elevator pitch.

Today, we live in a relationship economy where our worth is validated within the context of a community whose members know what we do, why we do it, and how we make a difference for the people we serve. And they know this not because they’ve all seen the transferrable skills listed on our resume, but because they know our story, and have experienced it coming to life as we’ve actively engaged them in conversations that matter and lead to meaningful relationships. As a consequence, they’re more predisposed to send opportunities our way because they know, like, and trust us.

Frankly, it seems like we’re now living in a “Final Jeopardy!” world. The answer is relationships. And the question is, “Today, what will drive your success?”