June 2012.pdf - RCSA

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT ISSUES
Imagine if...
New entrants to the workforce
didn’t stay in the same company
for most of their working life,
but instead changed employers
every few years.
There was low
unemployment and it
was hard to find the right
candidates for great jobs.
Graduates from university not
only changed jobs every few years,
but also changed careers several
times during their working life.
Employers, even the big ones like banks
and accounting firms, didn’t always offer
employees the prospect of a long career
and the opportunity to progress through
the ranks to senior positions.
Great workers wanted to have
career breaks and extended travel
breaks and didn’t worry about
being able to get a job when they
were ready to return to the
workforce.
People entered the
workforce with the
aspiration of becoming
a CEO but had no idea
how to get to the top.
Mark Ashburn, General Manager
– Sales, RecruitmentSuper
Imagine if the environment
changed (again!) and
managing careers was more
like being a player-manager
for elite footballers!
Mark Ashburn looks at the
things that have changed –
and the things that haven’t.
OF course, all of these things describe
today’s workforce, but it was only a few
decades ago that most of them would
have sounded far-fetched and fanciful. But
despite the rapid pace of change, which has
turned the way we work almost on its head, our
model for recruitment and career management
largely stay the same: recruiters recruit people
into roles, and then the candidates manage
their own career while they are working.
Sure, a lot of people working today have been
with one company for years, they have stayed
in the same career and worked their way to the
top, by planning their career in conjunction with
thoughtful employers who had a long term vision
for their organisation. But most of these people
are in the later stages of their careers, and will be
20
RCSA JOURNAL