There are six content sections in the Gold Standard Career Guide.
Here is a brief description to set your expectations and bring context to each section.
Section 1: Globalization and Offshoring
Achieving world class excellence
Fact: We live in an increasingly globalized world. This means that your career value is no longer assessed against your local peers but your global ones. It doesn’t matter that your peers may be all over the world. True, they are unlikely to compete with you for interviews, HOWEVER the fact is that the globalization of media, especially social media means that your voice and hence your status IS increasingly judged against your global peers. How can you maximize your status at the global level?
Section 2: Technology, AI & Robotics
Critical awareness to keep you ahead of the curve
Fact: Technology is affecting every job in one way or another. Some jobs are being replaced completely by machines. Others are being reshaped so much that whole new skill sets are needed. What can you do to respond and avoid obsolescence? We call the answer “keeping ahead of the curve”. It’s not a panacea but it will give you a strategy to keep relevant and employable.
Section 3: Disruptive Business Models
Career and Job Agility
Fact: Prior to the technology revolution, the outcome of competition between competing businesses determined which would grow and which would shrink. And consequently, which would hire and which would fire. Today, large employers face new competition from swarms of smaller and more nimble competitors who are redefining products, services, and markets. Most of this competition is online. How should we respond, other than wait and hope? Fortunately, there are positive steps we can all take to reduce our vulnerability and to take control. We call it “creating job agility”.
Section 4: Education and the Speed of Organizational Change
Creativity, ideas, influence
Fact: Traditional career advice affirmed the best career investment we could make was to acquire appropriate additional professional qualifications. This remains true for some professions, but for many more, qualifications will not get you hired, however many you have. Employers no longer complain about qualifications. The big complaint today includes finding the right skills and attitudes. Qualifications are not skills. Because the speed of change is now so rapid, many qualifications just take too long to acquire. The GSCG provides you with new ways to acquire the acumen and savvy to become and remain relevant.
Section 5: Demographics and the Aging Population
Where you fit in the workforce
Fact: A demographic time-bomb is exploding right now and affects every jobseeker, regardless of their age. The effects of the financial crisis of 2008 mean that the baby boomers are just not able to retire as their predecessors did. Their savings, pensions and assets have shrunk so much that continuing to work is their only option. At the other end of the age scale, recent graduates are finding it difficult to secure meaningful jobs and internships; the gig economy and side hustles are poor substitutes and prevent them progressing their careers. In the middle are the GenX-ers, struggling in a variety of different challenges. The GSCG shows you how to remain relevant to employers.
Section 6: Financial Resilience
Flexibility to control cash flow and quality of life
Fact: We live in a world in which credit and borrowing are more widespread than ever. And this has implications for our job choices. This is not about financial advice. It is about how we think about our money and work. How you spend your money is your choice. But you can choose a greater degree of stability regarding your finances. Choosing stability brings less stress, more control and more options. Financial stability isn’t a career skill, it’s a life choice which will give you more career flexibility in an age of ever-increasing uncertainty.
View the Career Management Life-Cycle.
