If you’re looking for a job, you should think like an entrepreneur, says Keith Stallings.
Stallings deals in human capital (the knowledge and skill-set of employees), and his company, Seaul Society, LLC, is in the business of training employees to become financially successful, not to rely on a job, but to tap into various streams of income.
“I’m a business development, human capital, career management consultant,” Stallings explains to rolling out. With a company tagline of, “resourceful humans are the soul of business culture,” Stallings brings a zen-like understanding to the job hunt.
How does your philosophy differ from most employment consultants?
I come from the human capital perspective. A lot of people do not understand there are certain inputs of a job. You have financial input, physical input and human input, which is human capital, where I delve in. If people have a paradigm shift where job seekers think more like entrepreneurs, [human] input of the business, they would have a better time with the job.
What are employees and job seekers doing wrong?
They are searching for a job instead of income. That’s the main thing. It’s OK to have a job as long as you know you are an important input — human capital — of the job. A lot of people fall into the rut where they don’t understand what their value is within the value chain of the business. They don’t see themselves as a business; they see themselves as just an employee.
So, an administrative assistant should consider himself a business unit within the company, not just an employee?
Yes. An administrative assistant has certain core competencies, i.e., transferable skills which they bring to the table. If you look at an administrative assistant’s resume or experience, you’ll see that they bring a lot of supportive activities to the senior executives. They are a main conduit in the business. They just have to realize that. I’m trying to get job seekers to shift that mindset so they’ll think more like entrepreneurs and like business units because they are a value. They are a part of what you call the value chain of business.
How do you get that message across when today’s typical worker bee is doing the job of several people, and, on top of that, the manager says, “In this economy, you should be happy that you have a job.”
Managers are doing their jobs to manage the core work force, of course. However, their job is not to inspire [employees] to greatness. Their job is to inspire [employees] to do a job.
And that’s the main thing, but you don’t have to be stuck in that. It’s not forever. You don’t have to be at a job for 20 or 30 years, unless you’re happy with it.
I’m trying to get people to transition out of that, especially in this economy, because we have a lot of people who are unemployed with poor competencies [or] transferable skills and didn’t know what to do because they were locked in that frame of mind of, “Hey, I’m just an administrative assistant. What else can I do?”
No, you have a lot of transferable skills. You might be a good painter or sports writer. It’s about tapping into those transferable skills.
What is the first step to getting out of the mindset of an employee?
Do not say that you want a “job.” Instead, say that you desire to have income. We really don’t want a job. No one wants to get up in the morning because they want a job. They want income. They want the money.
I also teach people, especially my kids, that when you get a job, go in there and learn the system. If you want to go to school, learn the system. You don’t have to define yourself just by what you know. It’s about how you apply your knowledge. That’s wisdom.
Seaul Society is on Twitter @Seaul Society.
