WORKSHIFTER - Dispatches from the New Executive Frontier

Marci Alboher is certainly a career visionary, as she began to chronicle the growing slash career movement, which includes more people taking on project-based work, with her book, “One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success” back in 2005.

An established “slash career” woman herself - journalist/speaker/writing coach - in addition to highlighting the gamut of slash careers, Marci is on top of companies that seek to take advantage of the growing number of workers looking for project-oriented, flexible work. I am humbled to say that Marci recognized my company; EPOCH as one of the newer entrants into this market in her most recent post on her blog Shifting Careers.

Marci raised a really interesting point when she compared the way in which former executives are marketing themselves today to the way freelancers have been doing it for ages. Marci went on to say, “Next thing you know, we’ll be seeing a new Freelancers Union aimed at independent executives. In the new economy, even former executives are behaving like hustling independent workers.”

I completely agree. This wave of independently employed workers is growing more mature every day. In the 90’s alone, nearly 50,000 freelance independent consultants entered the market, and today millions of U.S. workers are self-employed free agents (I also refer to them as the independently employed) In the 21st century, as the number of people wanting to work this way continues to grow, organizations like EPOCH that act as brokers, helping match companies with talent are emerging to support this expanding trend. I see it as the natural evolution of this market.

It will be interesting to see just how far this movement will progress…