Does your company do something exceptionally well as a result of industry dynamics? Quality processes. Mission critical systems. Marketing discipline. Customer support. Distribution precision. Don’t take that level of excellence for granted.
There may be organizations who look to your employer as a leader in this area and covet that expertise. The expertise you’ve gained from your employer’s unique circumstances may be just the career move strategy you need to empower a career change, a pivot, or a move up the ladder.
Origins of Expertise & Excellence
In order to identify what you can leverage for your career move, let’s start by unpacking the reasons your company might be seen as a leader in a specific area.
Competitive Differentiation: Companies build competitive advantage and a reputation spreads. If you wanted to hire sales people, for example, you favoured candidates who had trained with Xerox. Today, Zappos stands out for customer service and Netflix for data analytics.
Competitive Pressure: The price of staying in business might require excellence in key functional areas. The consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry is incredibly competitive, and marketing is a key part of the puzzle. As a result, CPG marketers are coveted for their skills and discipline.
Compulsion: Regulated industries require proven levels of excellence or standardization. For example, FDA regulated businesses have to be strongly documented and prove their processes and quality in order to get product to market.
Battle Scars: Surviving can breed expertise and excellence. A period of lean years and industry consolidation might create exceptional cost control or expertise in acquiring and integrating competitors.
The Market for Your Expertise & Experience
You have a valuable professional asset if you’ve been involved in managing and/or operating in your company’s area of excellence. The companies that value or aspire to be like your company are the followers and represent your “market” for that experience and expertise.
Who are the followers?
Smaller businesses: Small and mid-sized companies often value and intentionally recruit well-trained professionals from the larger companies. Not only are the small players keen on your expertise, they also represent an opportunity to get recruited to a bigger job.
Related industries: Industries can be related by operations type, processes, competitive pressures, market, customer type or a number of other similarities. Companies will recruit, or be open to hiring professionals from related industries when they value the area of excellence.
Going through the tunnel: Companies will hire expertise in advance of entering a new area, market, or phase of their business so that they can better navigate the change.
Defining Your Professional Asset
Enhance your professional assets and market power by leveraging your company’s reputation.
- Do you or have you managed or work in areas that are considered a competitive advantage, mission critical, unique, or for which your company has a reputation
- What is your level of responsibility and expertise in this area? Do you know enough to be an attractive hire?
- Which companies, or what types of organizations and industries might value this expertise?
These findings might create ideas about your next career move, influence your resume and LinkedIn profile, direct your networking efforts.
Get in touch if you’d like to better understand your unique, professional value and how to set yourself up for not only your next career move, but the one after that as well.