uct or service suddenly being offered by a global competitor, or maybe
being taken over by another company. And poof, through no fault of
your own, you are suddenly “seeking other opportunities.”It doesn’t
matter that your boss recently told you,“Yo u’ll always have a job here.”
She’s been fired, too!
When working to achieve greater security in your career, here are
some important things to keep in mind.Your employability is your real source of security. An alternative to
pinning all of your hopes for continuing employment on the “security”
of your present job is to develop your “employability.”
Your employability is the ability you have right now, given your
present credentials, to find someone in the marketplace who would be
willing to hire you. As many commentators have written, the quality of
your employability is the best gauge these days of how strong your
prospects are for continuing to be employed without prolonged invol-
untary disruptions.
Two key indicators of the quality of your current employability are
(1) the speedwith which you could be hired for a new job and (2) the
qualityof the job you could get.
Obviously, the current state of the economy and of the job market
in your field set the general conditions for the quality of your employa-
bility at any given time. But your level of employability isn’t something
that just happens to you. There are steps you can take, particularly
with a portfolio, to enhance your employability.
Your employability comes from having marketable P.E.A.K.S.It’s
quite simple: The more desirable your P.E.A.K.S. are to employers in a
particular industry, the more employable you are in that field. And, of
course, if you are versatile and have P.E.A.K.S. that would be consid-
ered valuable in more than one field, you are that much more employ-
able. Having good contacts can bring you to the attention of prospective
employers, but if you don’t have the P.E.A.K.S. they are looking for, you
are dead in the water.
Your Master Portfolio can be your “employability fund.” If you sud-
denly found yourself unemployed and looking for a job, you would want
to have some money in an account you could draw on to make up for
your lost paycheck. The greater your savings, the more financial secu-
rity you would have during periods of unemployment. But a “rainy day”
fund won’t get you a job!
Wouldn’t it be nice if, in addition to having a savings account to
deal with the financial issues associated with periods of unemploy-
ment, you could also have a “career account”that in times of emergency
could be drawn on to help you get your career back on track?
This career account is, in fact, your Master Portfolio. Your deposits
into this “account”are the documents you have added that demonstrate
your P.E.A.K.S. If it is well stocked with the items that verify the
P.E.A.K.S. that employers are currently seeking in candidates, it is, in
effect, your “employability fund.”If you find yourself suddenly needing
a job, you can draw on this account to put together Can-Do Portfolios
that give you your best chance of getting quickly employed again.116 Part I: Building, Using, and Maintaining Your Career Portfolio