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Performance Networking: A Midlife Career Change Strategy

If you're contemplating a career change, or just think you need a new job, you need to start that process now. By the time many working people need to change careers for whatever reason, they often find themselves with few options. A career development strategy called performance networking will put you in a better position to change careers, if facing a layoff or just want a different way of making a living.

Performance networking is a career strategy designed for change. A plain, unvarnished truth of 21st century life is that no matter how secure your job or how recession-proof your line of work may be, you need to be ready to move. As the Washington Post reported on 21 January 2008 (http://www.washingtonpost.com /wp-dyn/content/article/2008/0 1/20/AR2008012002368.html), 1 in 5 of the jobless in the United States have been out of work for 6 months or more, and this condition is growing among white-collar and college-educated workers, those once considered immune from long-term chronic unemployment.

Mid-career workers have one big advantage over neophytes: experience. They can walk into a new job or even a new line of work, and start contributing almost immediately. Experienced workers also bring employers intangible qualities such as maturity and good judgment, often missing in younger staff. The disadvantage for experienced workers is that they cost more. They earn higher wages and require more benefits (e.g., health care for entire families, not just themselves), which makes younger workers more attractive to cost-conscious companies. The trick for experienced workers is to show employers they're worth the extra cost.

What about networking?

Many employment counselors advise networking as a way to get your name and face out in front of potential employers, so your resume is not just one more mixed in a very large pile. As practiced in most places today, unfortunately, traditional networking is a cruel hoax. As Barbara Ehrenreich discovered in her revealing 2006 book Bait and Switch (http://books.google.com/books ?id=IdfJGVWdNsAC), the common networking experience of people getting together to exchange business cards, rarely works. Ehrenreich tells about repeated futile networking events, where only job hunters attend and end up networking with themselves. Chatting with other job hunters may provide a measure of comfort and commiseration, but otherwise it's a waste of time.

Simply put, you need get your skills,

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