Jobs For The New Millennium - Interview With George Bailey

by Susan Pieper-Bailey

Ed. Note: George Bailey is an internationally-recognized authority on organizations and management. He is presently a Partner at Pricewaterhouse Coopers where he leads the Innovation Practice. Before joining Pricewaterhouse Coopers, he was the Global Director of the Human Capital Group at Watson Wyatt. Mr. Bailey is frequently quoted in Fortune and The Wall Street Journal.

Excerpts from the interview with Mr. Bailey follow. To read the full interview, please return to the Life & Career section of http://www.futurestep.com and click on "Perspectives."

What trends do you see in management jobs in the 21st century?

First, you can't get ahead anymore by being narrow. Functional expertise is fine, but increasingly broader experiences are required to advance in leadership roles within companies. This means that you should actively seek to rotate to other functions within a company to broaden your experience and perspective.

Progressive companies will give you opportunities to broaden your skills by promoting from within to fill roles across functions. If your company doesn't give you such an opportunity, you need to actively seek it either within or outside of your company.

Secondly, you should look for ways to ensure that your skills are aimed not only where your company is right now, but also where it is going. This is just as true in the information technology space as it is in, say, finance. In IT, if you didn't get on the Java/HTML wave after the C++ wave, you risked being outdated. In finance, similarly, if you aren't at the nexus of online banking, you need to be at least familiar with how the Internet impacts your profession.

Third, there is also a trend towards global experience. Despite the current wave of Euro- bashing and Asian meltdown, I still believe that people with international experience command a higher salary. That is because they offer their companies, which deal with global issues, more in the long run.

What advice do you have for today's job seekers?

You need to think of yourself not as a job seeker, but as "human capital." The basic law of economics says that capital should be deployed where it can earn the highest return. You're not a cost to an employer, you're an investment.

Some people choose utility stocks for their investments because they pay a dividend. Other people choose technology stocks because of their potential for long-term growth in capital appreciation. I think that job seekers need to be clear on which "job investment" strategy they are pursuing. One job might afford a nice title and good cash flow, but the company itself has the potential to be left behind in the near future. Another job might offer less traditional perks, but provide tremendous growth and opportunity to contribute.

Overall, I don't think that you can go wrong by picking a winning company. Look at how many Microsoft administrative assistants are millionaires now! They might not have the biggest title or best role, but their job certainly has helped "brand" them, as well as lucratively reward them.