Is our job market starting to embody the characteristics of a start-up?

 "The Start-up of You" - a GREAT article by Thomas Friedman appeared in the NYTimes today. I was super excited because Friedman, famous NY Times columnist and author of the much lauded book "The World is Flat",  has managed to synthesize into his op-ed many of the thoughts that have been swirling through my head recently.


Friedman starts by highlighting how the strongest sector in the still lacklustre US economy is now in Silicon Valley, which is embodied by internet and social networking companies like Facebook and LinkedIn. For job seekers, the implications of this fact are powerful:  the job market has increasingly started to reflect the lifecycle and environment of a startup. 
A few quick notes on what makes a "start-up" a "start-up": 

• Start-up business cycles are much shorter than those of regular businesses and move much more quickly. 
• Start-ups make decisions quickly, with much less information than corporations would allow. 
• Because start-ups are always developing innovative new products, their goal is often to move fast and innovate, with processes tending to be lean and iterative. I think Michael K, from the start-up Skillshare, said it best on his blog: 

"Our team doesn’t believe in “launches” [of products]  because we’re always iterating, improving and innovating on our product. We don’t follow “two-week sprints”  because the biggest cost to our company isn’t money, it’s time. Two weeks for our team is equivalent to 2 months in the corporate world. For that reason, we will be releasing daily and often for our product.  This allows us to fail faster, and invest less time in things that just don’t work." (1)

Friedman suggests that this environment is reflected in today's job market as employment lifecycles shorten further and job tenures become more uncertain. Most importantly, those who manage to thrive in this new job market seem to possess the characteristics of agility, adaptation and tenacity - in short, the ability to continuously reinvent oneself. What does this mean for job seekers, or those of us trying to build our careers? One of the quotes Friedman includes that hits home most strongly is from Reid Garrett Hoffman*, one of the most prominent figures in the Silicon Valley start-up industry. He says: "...you should approach career strategy the same way an entrepreneur approaches starting a business.” (2)   


The changing job market has been written about before - particularly in relation to increasing globalisation and the characteristics of Gen-Y. The popular prediction to emerge from this conversation is that we will now have 4-5 different careers in one lifetime, not 1 or 2. However, comparing the job market to the incredibly uncertain environment of a start-up is a different proposition altogether and one I have not yet read about. Rather than 4-5 career changes, this implies a continuous shifting, adjusting and evolution of one's career and role, rather than distinct, definitive changes over a career lifetime. This implies more subtle adjustments, more iterations and less contemplation before making a move.    
   
If this is where the job market is heading, one would think that a lot of the job seeking population would need to adjust the way they think about their jobs and future careers. However, a lot of us already seem to be in this mindset. The rise in popularity of this industry with young, ambitious Gen-Yers from decent schools is evidenced even in my own network - at least 10 of the kids I went to school with are now working for Google. A handful have even started their own start ups.

In closing, this is a great article for those considering switching careers, kids in high school contemplating what they should study in college, and anyone else interested in the start-up industry. Read on here!!!! "The Start Up of You".

*"RGH is one of the premier starter-uppers in Silicon Valley — besides co-founding LinkedIn, he is on the board of Zynga, was an early investor in Facebook and sits on the board of Mozilla." (3)


Credits:
"The Start-Up of You", Thomas L. Friedman. New York Times online. July 12, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/opinion/13friedman.html?src=recg. (2), (3).
"Creating a Product Focused Start-up Culture", Michael Karnjanaprakorn. Michael Karnjanaprakorn Blog. February 21, 2011.http://www.mikekarnj.com/blog/. (1)