In the Pre-Internet era a job looked sort of like this: 9 to 5, breaks off for lunch for an hour, comes home every weekday looking tired, grabbing home made dinner, but most importantly, climbs up a corporate ladder in the SAME company for years.
Nowadays, a job is not secure, at least in a working useful lifetime, it’s not. Whether it is from the employee’s part or the company’s, in this part of the twenty-first century, a person may have on average 7 to 8 different jobs in different companies.
Why does this happen? Is economy really that bad? Well… it may be a factor, but only in troublesome times. What about the rest of the time? People simply change workplaces because developments occur on a daily basis. More modern and updated job descriptions come into the scene every time. Who can fill these positions out? Perhaps a recent university graduate who knows perfectly well what he or she is dealing with.
But what about the rest of the population? People still need to update themselves. So in the struggle for immediate and continuous adaptation, people see themselves in the need of upgrading, changing or simply having new jobs.
Even more so, because of known skill, other companies may come to employees from a similar or opposite enterprise and try to hire them. Just like Sundar Pichai’s case. A Google based engineer who is most wanted by Twitter. (See article: http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/20110108/twitter-courts-googles-sundar-pichai-to-be-its-head-of-product/?mod=ATD_rss )
Skills are important. It’s not just to get better, is to be appreciated and solicited. Think Better.