Building Gurus: Diversify For Long-Term Success

You don’t need to be a stock market whiz to know you shouldn’t drop all your money into a single stock. Likewise, being narrow in your career focus is not a great bet. Today’s market demands flexibility and diversity.

Diversify For Long-Term Success

I am not advocating you run out and learn everything you can about the building industry. You probably can’t learn how to install every type of roofing, know all the minutia of specifying every type of siding and keep your company’s IT department running smoothly.

Alright, someone out there maybe can, but most of us don’t have the capacity. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Spend time thinking about where you could expand your skills and experience and why you would want to.

More Skills = More Opportunities

Yes, employers want experts, but someone with proficiency in two areas is usually better than a genius at one. As a recruiter in the building products industry, I look at thousands of resumes a month. If someone has more diverse experience they are usually the one I am going to look at first. Be flexible and adapt to today’s marketplace.

Be Valuable To All

Knowing a bit about everyone’s job is important for many reasons. It helps you communicate with your co-workers more easily, bases your expectations in reality and helps you provide great feedback.

Imagine a meeting with top performers. A Branch Manager might offer suggestions on shipping and logistics software or the Sales Manager might be assisting IT in selecting and implementing the new CRM. Each provides valuable information from a different perspective and understands the problems faced before verbal help is offered.

How To Succeed

• Don’t spread yourself too thin. Master your primary skills, then add to them if you want to achieve your highest potential.

• Don’t consider learning something new until you know your current role inside and out.

• Look to your resume to find the answers. When you really focus on finding weaknesses or areas of expertise that need to be beefed up, the more tools you have for improvement. Use that information to make positive change.

• Find areas to grow that may have been another person’s domain in the past, but could complement your present skills. You’ll get paid great dividends for doing it and increase your marketability.

When you provide more ways for an employer to benefit from hiring you, you’ll be creating a career that will survive and thrive through many technological and economic changes.

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Source: Building Gurus