Career-building strategies.

• Author: Morgan, Mark
• Position: For finance officers in public administration

The recent recession hit professionals particularly hard and fundamentally altered the job market. To succeed in this new environment, finance officers should have a personal career development plan.

Editor's note: This article is reprinted with permission from the June 2002 issue of Strategic Finance, a monthly publication of the Institute of Management Accountants.

Take thousands of jobs that have been lost because of management debacles by firms like Enron, K-Mart, and Arthur Andersen. Toss in huge reductions in the professional workforce within the technology sector, telecommunications industry, and dot-com fantasyland. Top it all off with the recent economic downturn, and the result is the most significant downsizing of professional positions in history. No one ordered it, but a terrible job market has been served up. The result: Each month 80,000 jobs are being eliminated.

Approximately 1 million professional jobs have been lost during the past year. Whereas downsizing periods in the 1980s and 1990s impacted a broad range of workers, the fallout from the first recession of the new millennium has landed with a loud thud entirely on professionals. The impact has driven deep within industry segments, making it even more difficult for those who are let go to transfer their skills elsewhere.

As the number of positions shrinks and the criteria for advancement tighten, it is important to reexamine the fundamental building blocks that make up a career ladder. Understanding the landscape and developing a strategy will create the opportunities to help you build a successful career during this new business era.

Building a Career

The forecast looks gloomy. Downsizing, restructuring, and business compression will continue for up to 10 years before economic momentum like that of the 1990s can be rekindled. The current climate will drive the focus for career advancement to shift internally as the external job market shrinks because of global economic and political conditions. Fewer people will risk leaving their current company or expanding their geographic comfort zone as more companies struggle to meet the earnings expectations of Wall Street and CNN reports additional downsizings. That's why internal competition for advancement will increase, and the standard for what constitutes value-added job performance will be redefined.

In this climate, financial professionals need to reexamine their career tool bag, which contains three fundamental assets: education, experience, and interpersonal skills. Some people carry tool bags that are bulky and made of fine leather. They are distinguished from others by advanced degrees from top-tier schools, professional certifications, foreign language skills, international business experience, and internships. What does yours look like?

Your tool bag gains you entry into an organization and is your vehicle for advancement. Once in the door, you can begin to climb the career pyramid, which is made up of six bands. Starting from the bottom, these bands are: (1) market-entry assets, (2) performance building blocks, (3) career-building opportunities, (4) leadership proving grounds, (5) senior leadership roles, and (6) key executive. The vertical climb demands an ever-increasing demonstration of technical, tactical, strategic, and leadership performance while delivering business results. Skill demonstration and work style in the lower levels are rewarded with assignments to hone technical skills, demonstrate tactical abilities, and broaden business knowledge through participation on high-visibility, special-project teams. Top performers are rewarded with more visible assignments of increasing responsibility that test their ability to deliver business results while leading a functional, strategic, or process-focused group.

Performance Building Blocks

Initial jobs test employees' hard and soft skills while they're serving as an analytical resource to a functional client group or project team. Management will evaluate the information quality, analytical insight, and personal energy contributed to delivering the...