Have You Spent Your Entire Career At One Employer? If So, You Need to Read This Post.

I have recently written resumes for several individuals who have spent long careers (20 – 40 years) with a single employer. None of these people had a functional resume before we started working together and most of them had not kept detailed notes about past jobs and accomplishments.

When I graduated from college in 1989 most large companies had college graduate training programs and if you joined one, the company expected that you would stay with them for many years, or perhaps, your entire career. Companies invested in a multitude of training programs and development opportunities designed to groom junior employees into senior level roles. Employee loyalty was valued and was rewarded by company loyalty – if you weren’t particularly good at one job, the company would move you to a department in which your strengths could be utilized. Good employees were valued and were treated accordingly.

Jobs and workplaces certainly have changed since 1989. Generation Y employees view themselves as short-term employees wherever they go and they have a plan for navigating different employers/industries over the course of their career. There is no shame in moving from employer to employer anymore – in fact “job hopping” is a reality that stems from the fact that employers are no longer loyal to employees. Today every employee has to look out for his own best interests and always keep an eye out for great new opportunities no matter how nicely his employer is treating him today.

If you are employed by one of the few remaining companies that have employed “lifers” whether it’s a government job, not-for-profit, or private sector you need to start keeping track of your accomplishments. When the time comes for you to retire or you are laid off you need to be able to create a resume which clearly explains the unique skills and accomplishments that you bring to a potential employer.

I spent many years at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago which is an employer that invests in its employees and expects long tenure. I can remember being given very high profile special projects by the COO, successfully completing them, getting a pat on the back and then, as a reward, being assigned another high profile project. It was great. Some of the projects were unrelated to my “real” job and others were only important internally and wouldn’t necessarily seem significant to anyone outside the Fed. I have recently worked with several clients who had the same types of experiences – you are tagged as a high potential employee and given lots of cool assignments that are industry/company specific but that may be unimportant to a potential employer. How do you get that kind of information on paper? Or do you?

What I try to do is to figure out which projects might be relatable to another employer and relevant to the job my client plans to seek. Some projects or experiences just don’t make sense to include on a resume even if they were very important to your career at one point in time. The other thing I try to do is to make sure to “translate” the terminology unique to your long-term employer into terms that are universally meaningful.

If you are one of the fortunate few who have spent your entire career with one or two large employers, do yourself a favor and start keeping notes on every job you have had. Maybe you will keep your job until you retire and can live off your pension. But, should something unexpected happen, you need to have organized information that can be used to craft a resume that will help you get a job in an increasingly competitive job market.

The Best Advice I Ever Received

When I was about 4 years old we moved from Houston, Texas to a little town called Cushing, Oklahoma which is where I spent the next 13 years of my life. When we arrived in Cushing my parents, of course, needed to find childcare and that is how Mae Troxell came into our lives.

Mae was born in 1902 on a cotton farm in Nacogdoches, Texas so when we moved to Oklahoma in 1972 she was 70 years old. Mae was a tough old broad who was, on a good day, cranky, and on a bad day downright cantankerous. She demanded from all of her clients that she be given authority to spank her charges because she felt that if she assumed responsibility for their safety she also needed to be able to control the kids. I never got a spanking from her but I am pretty sure that both of my brothers felt the sting of the wire handle of a fly swatter on their bare legs a couple of times.

At first Mae started coming to our house only when my parents went out but over time she started coming over every day – sort of like a nanny I guess but the truth is that she was getting old so we were keeping an eye on her as much as she was watching out for us. Despite her prickly demeanor, over time, we came to realize that she cared deeply about all of us. And as I got older she told me stories about her life and she gave me some advice that continues to influence my life to this day.

Mae’s mother died when she was young and her father remarried a woman who had several kids – I don’t recall the exact number but I think there were about 10 kids in the household. Her father had a cotton farm and the whole family worked the farm. According to Mae picking cotton is really hard and unpleasant work. Mae told me that one of her step brothers used to pick unripe pieces of cotton that were still encased in their shells and throw them at her and her sister; apparently getting hit by them hurt a lot. So one day Mae and her sisters ambushed him, held him down, rolled up his pants legs, and beat him around the legs with nettle plants. He never bothered them again. I told you she was tough.

Mae grew up poor, never went to college, and then got married to a man named Lee Troxell who left her with 2 kids whom she raised in poverty but who turned out alright. Mae was never afraid to work. She always took in washing and ironing to earn extra cash. When she was eligible for social security, she found it didn’t pay enough for her to live on which was why she became our babysitter.

Mae had a tough life and from that life she learned a few things. One of them is not to let anyone bully you (see the above story about her step brother) but that isn’t the advice that affected me so much. Here are the two pieces of wisdom that Mae shared that have affected every decision in my life:

"Hold your head high ‘cause ain’t no one else going to do it for you".
This is advice we can all use. Be proud of yourself and be confident in your abilities because if you aren’t no one else will be. This single sentence has gotten me through some of the toughest times in my life.

"Get the best education money can buy because no one can ever take it away from you".
I preach this to every one of my cousins and any students I work with. A good education is more valuable than gold because it can never be taken away and you will benefit from it every day.

Mae died in August 1985, a month before I left for the University of Chicago. I was sad that she never got to see me go to college but she knew I got accepted to a top-tier university and she was proud. I wish she were still here to see that her lessons are still alive and well and have influenced my life in such a positive way. And hopefully, now that you have read this post, her lessons will influence you too.