Mindset Shift from Job Survival to Job Mobility
Note: This is the first in a 3-part series on findings from the BrandingPays Pulse Survey on current attitudes on mobility and social networking among professionals.
If you are looking to change your job this year, you are in good company. Our January 2012 survey indicates that job survival fears during the last two years of economic uncertainty are giving way to a willingness to risk changing jobs or careers.
Findings from our BrandingPays Pulse Survey (conducted in early January) indicate that many professionals are seeking job changes this year. Nearly 50% of respondents said they are “highly likely” to look for a new job in 2012 (a 10 rating on our scale of 0 to 10). See Chart 1 for details. Although not intended to be a scientific survey, our sample of 342 professionals provides a solid base for trend data.
The percentage of those likely to seek a job change jumps to more than 60 percent when we combine the responses for those rating their likelihood as being relatively strong to strong (a 7 and higher on our scale of 0 to 10).
2012 May Be the Year of Career Mobility
In Chart 2 which shows the probe on what courses of action those looking for career mobility are likely to pursue, nearly 68% said “Looking for a new job.” (The discrepancy from Question 1 totals may be attributed to the fact that this question was only answered by those looking for some type of mobility, not by those content with their current position.)
Nearly 20% said “Looking for a new position with my current employer;” 15% said “Trying to get promoted;” 27% answered “Trying to get a raise;” and 43% said “Pursuing a new career path.”
Conclusion: People want change. However, the desire to change jobs does not necessarily mean that you will be successful in getting a new job.
Your likelihood of success is very dependent on your ability to brand yourself. BrandingPays has helped many professionals who were at an impasse in their careers to reach their goals through personal branding. Case in point: within one year of training and coaching on personal branding with BrandingPays, all twelve director-level executives at a major San Francisco company had either successfully transferred into new jobs they desired at their company or had gotten a promotion. Branding does pay!
Will you be looking for a new job in 2012? How brand-ready are you? Take this quiz to find out: /pyramid-quiz/. Next week, in our second series on the findings from our pulse survey, we will look at how people are enhancing their likelihood of reaching their career aims—both offline and online. You may be surprised by the results.
Acknowledgements: I’d like to thank my friend Pam Kline Smith, a Silicon Valley marketing strategist, for co-authoring and analyzing the BrandingPays Pulse Survey. I’d also like to thank the folks at iCharts (www.icharts.net) for helping us create and embed our great web-friendly charts.
Share our Charts: To put any of our interactive charts on your own blog or site, just click “Embed” on the chart to get the embed code. Or choose the social sharing buttons.