In my last posts, I have written about problems with careers. I said the problems can be divided into two groups - problems resulting from behavior and problems resulting from skill gap. In this post, I will talk about the problem of skill gap. Depending on where you are up in the hierarchy, the problem with your career may be one of skill gap. It is good to make this point clear. Behavior is more important than skill in the executive position while skill is the most important factor in the lower positions. Before going into detail, I should first define what a skill gap means.
Skill gap means the difference between what the market wants and what an individual acquires at that moment in time. We live in a changing world whereby the skills necessary for a specific job may no more be sufficient to execute the same task today. Let me use an example to explain this. Let us take a company which used to operate in its country of origin and decided to go overseas. Going overseas implies that the workers should speak another language in order to communicate with workers in other countries. So, your ability to do your work as usual is not enough anymore. If you cannot acquire the language skill in a reasonable time, the tendency of the company will be to look for another worker who can speak a second language.
Another example is a case of a computer scientist who works in a computer company whose production has been outsourced to another country. The function of the computer scientist now changes from manufacturing computer or writing programs to providing support to computer users. Although the new function does not require a second language acquisition, it requires another type of skill.
So, before you start complaining about your career, check and see if your skill is compatible with the new demands of your department or the entire organization. In the case of your skill not meeting the demand, you should ask yourself what to do to correct it instead of complaining. Think about this!
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