What do you want?

While seeking a job, we all know we want a job. Most of us plan on being at a company for a long time, unless you are a contractor or a consultant. That is a different choice. But what kind of employment do you want? I am not talking about part-time, full-time, contracting or consulting. All of us that are categorized as employees should own our work. I am currently reading a book that was recommended to me by my boss and mentor. The book is called The Alliance. The book talks about what kind of employee you are and what kind of employment do you want. I am not 100% done but so far they have opened my mind to a whole new world of possibilities for employment. These strategies that are used by Facebook and LinkedIn shows that these ways work. They call it Tours of duty, they took the term from the military and reassigned some characteristics. There are three tours of duty. Rotational, transformational and foundational. Rotational tour of duty is assigned usually to an entry-level employee and is for a finite amount of time. Transformational is personalized to the employee. This would figure out what the employee wants to end up doing and then create a customized plan by the employee and manager so the employee can end up where they want to. The last being Foundational, which is for employees like CEO’s and foundations of companies that have been with the company forever or want to be forever and are known as the stability in company or department. Before Jeff Weiner became the CEO of LI, he was a foundational employee. While you are looking for a new job, or even eyeing that promotion figure out where you want to end up or do and have a conversation with your manager.