Internal Mobility : Career Resilience in Recessionary Times

They are calling it a white-collar recession!

As 2023 kicks in with a somewhat gloomy economic outlook, with predictions ranging from all-out recession to temporary downturn, analysts say that it is the white-collar jobs that stand most at risk this time around.

The trend started in the second half of 2022 (yes, the Big Tech firing bloodbath). And the layoff waves just keep rolling in, with managers and professionals in the crosshairs of companies seeking to cut costs.

Not the ideal backdrop for your career progression plans, we agree.

But even though the mad job-hopping and astronomic jumps of 2021 are fading out, there are still ways to improve your career prospects.

One of the hottest options to consider here is internal mobility – moving to a new position within the same organization.

Leverage internal mobility along with the willingness to view career progression as a lattice rather than a ladder, and dear techie you are likely to find opportunities for growth and development even during these recessionary times.

Internal Mobility Viewed from the Employee Lens

Internal mobility has been headlining as a top strategy for organizations for a while now.

Research indicates that if current employees are encouraged and given the opportunity and training to pursue a new role, maybe even a new career path, within the organization, they are likely to perform better than any external hire.

Companies, therefore, are increasingly relying on internal mobility to overcome the dual challenge of talent squeeze and contracting staff budgets that they face today.

Gartner’s 9 Future of Work Trends in 2023 unequivocally states that going ahead, there will be a new focus on internal talent mobility to ensure employees are deployed to the priorities that matter most and the opportunities that engage them best without fluctuations in headcount.

How does this organizational focus on internal mobility play out for you, the employee?

Well, in a nutshell, it makes it a lot easier for you to move ahead on the career path vertically or laterally within the organization itself rather than seek external employment.

A well-planned internal move can:

• Provide you opportunities for growth and development

  Moving to a new role within the same organization allows you to gain new skills and experience, making you more valuable as an employee and increasing your chances of career advancement. (And lifelong learning and upskilling, you must have heard the buzz, are the only way to stay relevant today.

• Increase your job security

  During a recession, companies may be more likely to lay off or let go of employees in certain roles or departments. By moving to a different position within the same organization, you can reduce your risk of being affected by these changes.

• Helps you gain a new perspective

  Taking on a new role within the same organization can give you a chance to see the company from a different perspective and potentially open up new opportunities for advancement.

• Be a cost-effective way to advance your career

  Pursuing external job opportunities can be costly, both in terms of time and money spent on applications and interviews. Inward mobility allows you to take advantage of opportunities for career advancement without incurring these costs.

The perceived downside here is that moving internally may not come with a big pay raise.

When you move laterally, you may not be able to go in at the same level, which could impact your compensation. And even a vertical internal move may not be as heavily compensated as an external position.

Also, often, people are apprehensive that staying with the same company may be viewed as career stagnation.

However, if you like your company culture and the people you work with, the benefits of internal mobility far outweigh the negatives, especially in these recessionary times.

How to Move Internally within the Company

Do you remember your last job hunt – the effort you had to put in? An internal move, as mentioned earlier, is considerably simpler. However, you still need a carefully crafted strategy to ensure that you can identify and snag relevant internal opportunities.

This article outlines a four-step process you can use to navigate your internal move.

Step 1: Identify the ideal move: Up, down, or sideways

Often, when envisaging our progression in the organization, we get stuck in the career ladder mental mode.

Break the trap.

Yes, your career could progress vertically. However, it could also move diagonally, horizontally, or even in a zig-zag fashion.

It is a lattice, not a ladder out there, and you need to assess which move – up, down, or sideways – would suit you the best.

As in most such situations, the assessment exercise begins with defining your goals and priorities. Why are you contemplating a move? What are you hoping to achieve via the switch?

Job Satisfaction Questionnaire to Assess Your Career Happiness. Ask yourself:

• Do you enjoy the field of work you are engaged in?
• Do you want to expand your current work scope?
• Can you bring more to the table?
• Are you ready for higher responsibility?
• Do you want a raise?
• Do you want more influence?
• Can you commit more to the job?

If most answers are yes, you are probably ready for a vertical move.

And if not?

Well, then, you may want to consider a lateral move.

A lateral move is when an individual moves from one position to another with little change in salary, title, or level.

Even though is no promotion, a lateral move is a good option for those seeking to make a career shift and/or gain new skills and experiences. (research shows that 61% of US job seekers want to make a career change into a new field.)

The question set that you need to consider before making a lateral move is:

• Are you feeling stagnant in your current role?
• Does the lateral switch help you build new skills and/or fill professional development gaps?
• Will you be able to progress your career faster after you learn these new skills/fill the gaps?
• Do your future career goals require cross-functional exposure, and will the lateral switch provide this experience?
• Do you want a break from your current team?
• Are there any personal goals – work-life balance, geographic relocation – that will be better served by the move? How important are these goals?

Again, if the majority of the answers are yes, you may be well-served by moving laterally.

However, do keep in mind that lateral moves involve an opportunity cost.

Learning new skills and starting over again requires effort. Also, the shift in the career path interrupts the depth of expertise and track record you have been building.

Also, in case you have already made several other lateral moves earlier, it may raise some red flags.

Is the opportunity cost worth the gains you expect from the switch?

And then there is down-shifting, the most daunting change to make. A downward move is indicated if your current career is just not in alignment with your goals (personal and/or professional).

Consider the example of a senior backend developer who has been appointed as the team lead. A few months into the role, the developer realizes that she does not enjoy the mentoring and leadership part of the position. She would rather spend her effort building deeper technical knowledge. A step back here may be the right professional move for her.

Stepping back and restarting can also be useful if you want to make a drastic switch in your field of work.

A data analyst may want to shift to a data scientist position in the organization. Even though they complete the necessary upskilling for the transition, they may have to start in a relatively junior position. However, if the analyst is passionate about becoming a data scientist, the downshift should not hold them back.

Of course, you need to weigh in personal goals and limitations and financial considerations too when assessing your ideal career move.

You may find yourself struggling with a mix of motivators (and limitations) at the end of the assessment exercise.

List them honestly and rank them in order of priority to figure out your ideal move.

Step 2: Take Inventory: Think Transferable Skills

Next, you want to revisit your resume.

The usual tendency here is to focus on deep skills. Backend specialist – 15+ years Java experience, Lead DevOps engineer – skilled in building and maintaining SaaS solutions based on Linux/Unix platform in a cloud (AWS) …

A better idea, though, is to think in terms of transferable skills, especially if you are considering a role change.

Transferable skills are the skills you’ve picked up from your past experiences that can be applied to the new role you are looking to transition into. They include both technical and power skills (the new, and more apt, name for the erstwhile soft skills).

On the technical skills front, techies are often categorized as I, T, π, M, and even comb-shaped people on basis of their specialization repertoire.

A T-shaped techie would be someone who specializes in one area and has some basic skills and experiences in other areas. The π would have two areas of specialization, less deep though, and the comb (you guessed it) would have the breadth of a generalist and some depth in multiple fields.

Phew!

The problem with this approach is that tech is constantly evolving, and there is just no point viewing your knowledge trajectory only in terms of current specializations and relevant experience.

Dave Rooney, veteran agile coach, gives a better analogy to assess your technical skills – icicle-shaped people.

Over time you have developed a broad range of skills, but not with equal depth. Some skills you used earlier might have nearly melted away and become a shorter icicle. While others, relatively recent, may still be hanging long.

The point is that when considering a move, you should consider the entire skill set on the icicle. It doesn’t matter if the role requires a skill that has melted away. Even if you have some knowledge of the skill (or related skills), you can build on the base and perform effectively.

The good news is that organizations recognize this. They understand that the only way to future-proof the organization is to invest in employees who display the aptitude to learn and keep moving forward.

As for power skills, you already know that qualities such as critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, communication, leadership, and collaboration are in massive demand in the workplace today. (Also read The 3 Underrated Skills That Can Take Your IT Career to the Next Level)

So, look back. Identify and articulate the skills you use to perform workplace functions and responsibilities. Are they transferable to the new role you are gunning for?

Showcasing your functional and your non-functional transferable skills makes you a strong contender for the position you want.

Please link  this to our internal article on underrated skills

Step 3: Build the Base: Manifest (And Discuss) Your Passion

What’s it gonna take?

This is the part where you actually start working towards your target.

The first, and most obvious step, here is skill gap analysis. What is your current skill set, and what is the required skill set for the job you want? (Don’t forget Step 2, transferable skills count).

If any critical skills are missing, how do you plan to acquire them? Online courses, volunteering, working with a mentor, side-projects, seeking involvement in initiatives in the function you want to join … there are multiple routes to consider here.

Now, once you have identified the gaps and are working towards filling them, you may feel you have done your bit.

Right?

Wrong.

There is another side to the equation.

You need to make your passion known.

Bring up the career path you want to pursue, early and often, in discussions with your boss and/or HR. Performance reviews and one-to-one meetings with the boss/HR provide an excellent window.

Seek active feedback – courses to pursue, attitudes to be cultivated, cross-functional experience opportunities – on what you need to do to get to the point you want to achieve during the review.

Even if direct guidance is unavailable, the organization will take note (and hopefully) appreciate that you are an engaged employee proactively seeking professional development and upskilling.

You would do well to cultivate a robust cross-departmental network too. It will provide visibility into areas of the business that are removed from you.

A broad-spread network of influential allies, sponsors, and mentors, when informed about your career progression aspirations, can help you sniff out potential opportunities available within the organization well ahead of time.

Also, do keep your allies updated about your achievements and skills. No, you don’t need to blow the bugle, but a little humble bragging about your success stories and relevant experience provides them with the ammunition to pitch for you when required.

Step 4: Reach: Ability > Qualification

And then you reach.

Scout for open positions in the organization. The company job portal is the usual starting point, but you could approach departments/people you want to work with directly too.

In case you’re in a traditional, hierarchical organization, don’t hesitate to step out and advocate for yourself.

Be proactive, and communicate clearly what you are looking for and why you think you would be a good fit for the role when you reach out.

Also, and this one is important, don’t let self-limiting thoughts and doubts hold you back from applying to the position you want.

Often, a confidence gap of actual or perceived barriers deters us from pursuing opportunities that excite us.

I don’t have the right experience. My expertise lies in a different area. My degree does not cover this. There are far better-qualified candidates for the job …

This professional confidence gap is especially pronounced for women. A 2014 Hewlett Packard study indicates that men apply for a job when they meet only 60% of the qualifications, but women apply only if they meet 100% of them.

The situation continues even today.

Push yourself out of this thought pattern.

Understand that as an internal candidate, you already have a solid in. No automated application system and algorithms screening you out here.

The company knows you. It has invested in you and wants to retain you.

Even if your skillset and qualifications are not the perfect fit for the role, your experience and internal performance record (we are hoping it is a good one) make you a strong contender for the position.

The fact is that quality talent is short, and companies realize that it is imperative to provide their employees with personalized career pathways based on goals and interest areas to retain them.

Also, if you are unsure whether you meet the requirements for the hot, new post that has just opened up, remember chances are that other candidates too are unlikely to be equipped with all the skills that the role demands.

The fact is that there is a structural gap in the tech talent market. Organizations are remodeling themselves to leverage new, emerging technologies. However, the specialized skills required to implement the latest tech tools are scarce.

Therefore, companies are increasingly relying on upskilling and retraining to equip the current workforce to take on new roles, and herein lies your window of opportunity.

And what if the domain you want to pursue does not align with your college education?

Take heart! According to Harvard Business Review research, companies are already ditching degree requirements for 31 percent of high-skill and 46 percent of middle-skill positions.

Ability to perform the role – assessed in terms of relevant experience and transferable skills – is gradually gaining precedence over college degrees.

Conclusion

The January wave of CompTIA’s biannual “Job Seeker Trends” research notes that financial considerations, life priorities, and a desire for new challenges are some of the critical factors that have prompted nearly a third of America’s workforce to pursue new jobs in recent months.

World over too, similar considerations are driving people to seek new employment.

However, instead of falling into the default mode of seeking to meet these aspirations externally, consider internal options first.

Given the current atmosphere of layoffs and volatility, an internal move could be an effective strategy to recession-proof your career without compromising on growth and development.

It could help you progress in a career direction that is aligned to organizational needs and also in line with your own needs, skills, and interests.

What happens once hiring conditions improve?