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mkb
Member Since:
05 May 2006
Posts:11
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18 May 2006 3:48 PM |
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“One of Columbus’ sailors would have been a valuable able seaman aboard Farragut’s ships. Even a sailor from the ship that took Saint Paul to Malta would have been quite reasonably at home as a forecastle hand on one of Joseph Conrad’s barks. A Roman cattleman from the Dacian frontier would have made quite a competent vaquero to drive longhorn steers from the plains of Texas to the terminus of the railroad, although he would have been struck with astonishment with what he found when he got there. A Babylonian administrator of a temple estate would have needed no training either in bookkeeping or in the handling of slaves to run an early Southern plantation.”--Norbert Wiener, The human use of human beings: Cybernetics and Society
The question I have is, does this apply in our society? Is technological change now at such a pace that the idea of transferable skills becoming quaint? Can a person leave the workforce for 5 years and expect to return to it at a level close to where they were when they left?
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badoian
Member Since:
22 May 2006
Posts:1
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22 May 2006 12:55 PM |
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The most important skills stay the same.
Understanding the
customer. Knowing how to manage people. The ability to effectively
communicate. The ability to see trends. Providing leadership. All of
these are not time dependant.
For example at the local yacht
club, the retired business executives bring these skills and abilities
to fund raisers and regatta. Their ability to execute and produce is
just as high as anyone else, and in some cases even more since they
have a unique perspective of not being in the trenches.
Charles
--
"I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein
"Vision is the art of seeing the invisible." - Jonathan Swift
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mkb
Member Since:
05 May 2006
Posts:11
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22 May 2006 1:44 PM |
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Great points. I'd add that it will be the firms recruit with a focus on these traits, rather than waiting for people with complete current technical skills (the latest version of Hyperion, Excel, etc.) that will wind up on the far-end of the bell curve.
That said, the majority of corporate recruiters out there (trust me as a bit of a subject-matter expert on this) focus on specific, technical buzz-words when they scan resumes. How does the returnee, or semi-retiree, get around this hurdle to the point where they can get in front of a hiring manager who knows to look for the intangiables that actually make the diference?
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EngFear
Member Since:
05 May 2006
Posts:12
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22 May 2006 3:44 PM |
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1. Find a recruiter that is sympathetic to their situation. Given the demographic shifts we're seeing in OECD countries, there will be a niche for recruiters that can find & position "seasoned" candidates.
2. Avoid a recruiter altogether. Presumably the returnee has a network of contacts they can leverage - a larger & more developed one than a new graduate maybe.
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jgunning909
Member Since:
19 Sep 2008
Posts:3
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19 Sep 2008 9:03 PM |
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MKB--I believe that in most businesses the answer is no. from production techniques to market evolution, most businesses will be quite different in a five year span. Can the time lag be "made up"? Depends on the person for sure, but when qualified, current talent is often in reasonably good supply, why increase training costs, learning curves etc. with the stale model?
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