Adapt or die: why career adaptability is vital to your success

By AIM Senior Research Fellow Dr Samantha Johnson

“Dreams are extremely important. You can’t do it unless you imagine it.” George Lucas

New Year’s Resolution…get that dream job or a promotion.  Right?  Be brave, grab the bull by the horns, and go for it!  Easier said than done!  Here are some tips for career success, based on new research about career adaptability.

Career adaptability is a relatively new concept first published in the Journal of Vocational Behaviour in 2014 and it’s all about career success. Career adaptability can be learnt and practiced and equals career satisfaction, promotions and overall career success.

There’s even a new psychometric tool to measures a person’s career adaptability. Used by career counsellors, it is helping people get promoted, be engaged at work, have greater career satisfaction and overall, better career success.

Career adaptability refers to a person’s willingness and ability to adapt to changing work environments.  It’s about being very, very aware of the 4 attributes of adaptability, practicing them and being explicit about them so that potential employees see them clearly.

Underlying abilities include being able to cope with change and the unknown. To see into something that is unfamiliar and work with it. It’s about having self-knowledge and self-management to operate effectively – or foresee how to operate effectively – in a job that you don’t yet clearly understand, because you don’t yet have it! It’s about doing things to prepare for a new environment.

Career adaptability means having, and showing, 4 tendencies:

To increase your level of career adaptability, consider doing the following:

• Think about your future and what it will be like
• Identify how your choices today will shape your future
• Have positive expectations of the future
• Plan how to achieve specific goals
• Anticipate the changes you will need to make
• Be persistent and patient
• Consider many varied alternatives
• Be curious about new opportunities
• Learn new skills
• Be optimistic about different roles and opportunities
• Overcome obstacles
• Probe deeply, especially into yourself
• Know and be true to your personal beliefs
• Learn about your decision making tendencies and learn how to make better decisions
• Count on yourself – not others
• Direct your own future
• Do what’s right for you and your family
• Take charge of your future

Many of these tips are not new.  But new or not, they’re well worth considering and are proven to improve promotion and career success. And if you give them deep consideration, they’re harder to do and require more energy and thought than you might think. Don’t give them lip service or assume you’ve got these attributes.  Focus your attention on them. Strengthen them and make them known to others.

Career adaptability is not about skills or qualifications or previous work experience.  Selling yourself into a new position is not just about being clever or a fast learner or looking for challenges!  It’s about being adaptable and showing a potential employer that you are adaptable.  It’s about being willing to and capable of foreseeing something new and unknown and moving into it with optimism and confidence.  Believing this yourself and showing others this will help you achieve your dream job.  Success is not just about skills, it’s about attributes.  It’s about being adaptable. Give it a go. Good luck.

Reference: Mark L. Savickas, Erik J. Porfeli (2012) Journal of Vocational Behavior 80 (2012) 661-673