Myth: Management positions are socially more acceptable.
Realty: Technical people are more easily employable.
In some geographies, including India, occupying a management position is a status symbol. Some people seek desperately to rise up the management ladder mainly due to pressure from their social circle. You have got to remember that any high performer in his own area of work is always. Employable, irrespective of industry condition, market volatility or a company’s financial health. Such people are always in demand due to their great skills.
But a majority of employees who are not high performers struggle when their company or industry hits bad times. Management jobs are axed more frequently than the technical ones. Also, during downsizing, sometimes the management has to compromise with job levels. It is not unheard of a VP’s becoming a director and a director, becoming a manager. This does not normally happen on the technical side as it is not so tightly bound into the organization’s stricture. Moreover, since technical-ladder designations are not seen as glamorous, even if there is a change in the title, it hardly impacts the person in his social circle. But one thing is common to both ladders: salary reduction due to the poor financial situation of the company impacts both ladders.
When companies get acquired, it’s usually because of their technology and customer base. So it is true that those who are on the technical side are more easily retained. And as good technical managers are hard to find, because of their technical grasp they might be retained more often than managerial skills.
WHAT CAN YOU DO? Focus on building in-depth knowledge in your area. This can be done by spending a considerable amount of time in a given company so that you get to experience the full lifecycle of a project. Together with this, you need to study, experiment and apply new and prevailing industry practices and processes. Most of the time, your existing project might not provide all these opportunities, but you can do your research in your leisure time. You should not only be able to make your potential employer understand the scope of your existing project, but also show that you have the capability to come up with new ideas. Even in management positions, people with a good mix of management and subject-related skills are preferred to those with pure management skills.
