It’s time to promote yourself to CEO of Me Inc.

Work for yourself for a couple of years and you will never understand the employee mindset again. Where is the hunger? The commitment to excellence? When you are self-employed you bring your A-game to the table. Your next gig is based on referrals and recommendations from current clients. You show up early and stay late to ensure you are exceeding expectations.

The self-employed invest in their professional training and development. They value themselves and take control of their careers. The added bonus is that when you work for yourself you never have to worry about being laid off.

Many employees, on the other hand, offer perfunctory job performance, contribute to the company 401(k), and pray they will be able to retire happily ever after. In offices everywhere you can find employees who are doing the bare minimum and wasting inordinate amounts of time. A simple “How was your weekend?” often turns into a 20-minute discussion.

In today’s market you might imagine employees working a bit harder to avoid being let go. Instead, people are fiddling around on Facebook and playing endless rounds of Free Cell. Granted, there are plenty of employees who work hard for their money, but many Americans suffer from a general sense of malaise at work.

It is time to snap out of it! Job security is an oxymoron. We must actively manage our careers rather than passively allowing others to control our destinies.

So, whether you are in job-search mode, working your way up the corporate ladder, or simply hoping to avoid being laid off, it would be prudent to start thinking (and acting!) like an entrepreneur or an independent contractor. People who work for themselves are generally very good at what seems to perplex and confound those of us who still behave like employees.

Find your niche

Job seekers often try to convince recruiters that they can do it all. They include so many “areas of expertise” on their resumes it becomes laughable. Typically, candidates try so hard to be what they think a hiring manager wants that they forget who they really are. It is easy to fall into this trap when jobs are scarce and the electricity bill needs to be paid, but trust me, recruiters, hiring managers, and even resume-scanning software can see right through this approach.

The successfully self-employed find their niche, work to their strengths, and strive to become known as experts in a specific field. As scary as it may be to limit yourself, you must be willing to put a stake in the ground and commit to a particular path, forsaking all others. When we try to be everything to everyone, we very often end up being nothing much at all.

Market yourself

Ask a job seeker to state succinctly, in 30 seconds or less, what kind of work he or she is looking for and what would make him or her a strong candidate to consider. You will either hear an over-rehearsed elevator speech that leaves you cold or watch the person before you turn into a blithering idiot.

Why is it so darn difficult to eloquently and sincerely communicate our unique value to the world? Once you identify your niche, you need compelling verbal, written and web-based materials that work together to tell your story. Those who work for themselves would not get many gigs if they did not know how to network and promote themselves to their target markets. The self-employed believe in the work they do and are able to articulate their value in a way that inspires others to want to know more.

Embrace risk and rejection

Employees tend to play it safe. They go to work each day and pretend their jobs are secure. In the event of a layoff, most employees would be hard pressed to network their way out of a cubicle. Job searchers send endless resumes into cyberspace but avoid (like the plague!) following up in person with employers. Online rejection is so much easier to handle than a personal rebuff.

We are less likely to reach our full potential when we are too fearful of rejection and failure. Entrepreneurs go “all in” and bank on their own success. The successfully self-employed continually risk rejection as they network or make proposals to potential clients. Employees and job searchers need to adopt a similar approach. No risk? No reward!

We all need to get out of the employee mindset and start managing our careers. It starts by defining a niche and truly believing that what we have to offer is of value. Stale resumes, boilerplate cover letters and lackluster online profiles won’t cut it.

We need to develop our personal brands with effective marketing that communicates our worth. Networking should be a way of life, not a contrived job-search activity. Finally, we need to take risks and get out of our comfort zones in order to move our careers forward.

A wise person once said, “There can be no transformation without trembling.” If that is the case, may we all tremble and shake with fear in the coming year.

Carrie Pinsky lives and works in Fort Collins.

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