How to never lose a job/have rapid career growth:

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I spent 20 years in unstable startups and was never laid off.

I became Controller at age 36 and CFO at 41.

With 1 Accounting class in college, no CPA, and two years off for a useless film degree.

How'd I do it?
1/18

There's a few methods. Any one of these will ensure you never lose a job.

Combining them will give you rapid growth.

1. Fill a vital function that the company needs as long as it's in business, and do a good job of it.
2/18

For example, at an early-career job I volunteered to handle billing.

Then I never had to worry during layoffs.

No matter how bad the financial situation, the company would still need to bill customers.

I was good at it, so my job was safe.
3/18

2. Bring in or save more money than you cost the company.

The obvious way to do this is if you work in sales.

No company ever lays off a successful salesperson.

But you don't *have* to be in sales for this.

You can also save the company money.
4/18

Once early in my career I caught a mistake that would have cost the company $600,000.

I was getting paid $60,000.

In 30 minutes I paid for my annual salary 10 times over.

That gets noticed.

Would *you* lay off someone who saved the company 10x his salary?
5/18

Not only was there gratitude, but also hope that I'd do something like that again.

This also helped with career growth.

My boss at the time went on to work somewhere else.

When I asked for a job at the new company, he instantly hired me, with much higher pay.
6/18

3. Be a ninja at something useful.

Find some software, equipment, or process that people often struggle with at your company, and become awesome at it.

Be the one everyone comes to for help.

You'll be too useful for the company to lose.
7/18

A woman I once worked with is a PowerPoint ninja.

When the CEO wanted decks for investors and enterprise sales, he came to her.

Then her entire department got outsourced.

The company created a new job for her in another department, just because the CEO needed her.
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4. Be the one who knows what's going on.

This works best in companies with complicated or unusual operations/business models, rapid growth and changes, and a lot of employee turnover.

Which all applies to unstable startups.
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Learn as much as you can about how things work at the company, as quickly as you can.

Obviously about your particular job and department, but also the company as a whole.

After some employee turnover, you may become the *only* one who knows certain things.
10/18

Once you're the only one who understands how key things work, you're practically irreplaceable.

This is also a great time to get huge pay raises and title changes, because the company really doesn't want to lose you.
11/18

To clarify, I'm not suggesting you keep secrets or hoard knowledge.

NEVER INTENTIONALLY ACT AGAINST YOUR EMPLOYER'S INTERESTS

That sort of short-sighted nonsense will kill your career.

Be willing to share what you know and train people.
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But if everyone's too busy, unskilled, or inexperienced to learn, go ahead and take advantage of that.

An additional caveat:

Even though you have the company over a barrel, don't push them *too* hard.

You don't want them to resent you.

Which brings me to the next item:
13/18

5. Be someone people are glad to work with

Be friendly to your coworkers, bosses, and underlings.

Volunteer to help out

Get your work done on time, and make it high quality

Always look for ways to improve your work and processes

Make your coworkers' lives easier
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This ensures you keep your current job because nobody wants to lose you.

It helps your current career growth because everyone wants to reward you.

It helps future career growth because anyone you've worked with will want to hire you, or put in a good word.
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6. Be a beast

Some people are extremely fast or efficient in their work.

They do the work of three people.

And don't even have to stay late to do it.

If you're one of those, you're golden.

This last one may not be helpful as advice.
16/18

I don't know if you can learn how to be a beast.

It may be that you either are or you aren't.

But if anyone has advice on how people can learn, I'd love to hear it.
17/18

So that's six ways to ensure you never lose a job, and rapidly climb the career ladder.

If you found this helpful, please RT the top tweet to share with others.

I'm not even selling anything.

(I won't complain if you check my bio/pinned tweet for stuff I *am* selling)
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