Portability can make you sought after across sectors

Career mobility is inevitable. People change jobs. People change towns and cities. People even change the entire focus areas of their careers. These could be a result of changing externalities or internal desire.

However a few things can remain constant and can be transferred in the midst of all of the above happening. This is the notion of “portability”. What can be retained and sustained even as changes take place in jobs, location, sectors or pursuits?

Let us begin with the portability of skills and competencies. This is probably the easiest to focus on when it comes to portability. This may sound counter-intuitive, even as jobs and roles acquire more niche dimensions. But there are certain competencies that remain equally valuable in new roles.

“In today’s rapidly changing economy, every smart company recognises that ‘Talent is destiny’. Smart managers spend a great deal of thought in attracting and retaining good talent. Individuals need to recognise that their skills and reputation are the best insurance in turbulent times,” says Sonali Shetty, an Adjunct Faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University’s DaVinci Center for Innovation.

She also added that building a wide array of skills (technical as well as deep business understanding) enables individual career seekers to choose from a variety of opportunities.

Then there is the portability of connections and networks.

Porting professional relationships

How can the professional relationships you build traverse organisations? Are you able to leverage the connections of yesteryears to enable you to grow and advance professionally years later?

Some of these connections could turn out to be mentors, references or just good people to stay connected with. They could also be peers who are also rising in the ranks in their respective companies.

While skills and connections have a more tangible side to them, the ability to generate new ideas, innovative thinking and good professional practices are more intangible. Having an eye for them or mastering them can be equally if not more precious in being valued in any industry.

While this is a relatively new phenomenon, portability across sectors is gaining more traction.

People are migrating from government to the private sector and vice-versa.

Lateral moves across the academic world, media industry, and research organisations are not as uncommon as before. Again it is important to think of all of the discussed elements of portability while you may consider a big move of shifting sectors.

It goes without saying that professional integrity, intellectual property, legal bindings and etiquette have to always be kept in mind even when we strive to build the portability factor into one’s career path.

Last, soft skills are always portable. Demonstrating empathy, being gracious in complimenting good effort and talent, problem-solving abilities, clarity in communication are traits that are as portable as they come. While you deepen your portability portfolio in competencies and networks, keep the focus on the human side of portable qualities as well!

(The author is a global trainer and has been building cross-sectoral partnerships for over three decades.)