Today is another one of those “Ugggh!” days, when one of my pharma clients is announcing a major new round of layoffs. I’ve seen a lot of these in the past few years, and every time, good people are forced to re-think their career direction.
Re-thinking is hard. And in a time when constant marketplace change is the new normal, it’s unavoidable. Permanent employment with ever-stable companies – that’s a thing of the past.
Our only security is network security – building a high-quality network of great people, interconnected with other great people. That’s where new opportunities and open doors will appear. Jobs may be eliminated, companies may falter – but your best professional move is to grow a network of people. That’s one reason why I’ve built the Impactiviti network.
And, if you’re downsized, some of those very people may be the ones who best recognize what you could/should be doing next. Sometimes, disruption forces us to re-consider and re-calibrate.
I was sitting in front of the fire with a friend last night who is probably best described as under-employed. As we talked about his skills and successes, an underlying theme became clear – he actually had a set of skills that just about any worthwhile company would need (and pay handsomely for). It just came down to recognizing it, defining it, and (our next step) “packaging” him for a new phase of his career.
I have no doubt that many of my displaced pharma friends are loaded with marketable skills. A layoff can be a very isolating experience, and can cause us to question our worth, but the best course to take is to pro-actively network with others. Initiate a LinkedIn contact. Invite someone you barely know for coffee. Share war stories and contacts. It’s your future, and your security – build it!
For those in pharma who would like to plug into some networking groups with other industry colleagues, I have set up a couple LinkedIn networking groups, as has the SPBT (Society of Pharmaceutical and Biotech Trainers):
>>Join SPBT networking group (client-side and vendors allowed)
>>Join Impact Life Sciences sales-training-marketing networking group (current employees of pharma/biotech/device companies; no vendors)
>>Join Impactiviti Pharma Talent networking group (job seekers from pharma/biotech/device companies, sales-training-marketing; no vendors)
You can join any or all that apply.
For those displaced, we’ve also set up a Job Board here; you can also use a meta-job-search engine like Indeed.com and Juju.com.
Don’t lose heart – instead, build something for you.
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Impactiviti is the Pharmaceutical Connection Agency. As the eHarmony of sales/training/marketing, we help our pharma/biotech clients find optimal outsource vendors for training, eMarketing, social media, and more.
Learn more about us here.
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A bunch of positions for pharma sales trainers have come on the market here in mid-April, 2012! Here are some links for you:
I’ve sat down and talked with countless professionals who are in the midst of re-thinking their career. And I’ve discovered that such consultation is almost exactly parallel to what I do with brands and companies when they are trying to figure out their identity and strategy. We need to get to 20/20 vision, we need to understand our professional DNA, but so much seems cloudy and unclear from where we sit.
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