The Rise of Career Nomadism

Korn Ferry is a large, global organizational consulting and recruiting firm. Their research institute recently released their Top 10 Talent Trends for the New Year.

All the trends are interesting. But the one that jumped out at us is the rise of career nomadism.

Key quote describing this group:

"... there’s an increasing amount of employees who actually want to make walking out the door a major part of their career. These “career nomads” are high-performing talented pros who have no qualms switching jobs, organizations and even careers. Millennials, people born between 1982 and 2000 and now the largest part of the US workforce, seem particularly disinterested in staying put."

Korn Ferry goes on to say that corporations are going to need to attract and keep these nomads happy or miss out on a key source of top talent.

We certainly agree. And we see this as one of the drivers of the growth of independent work (freelancing, independent consulting, etc.).

Work is becoming more team and project-oriented, and the barriers separating traditional and independent work continue to erode. For an increasing number of workers, it’s not simply a matter of having a traditional payroll job or working independently.

Instead, many are doing both, developing their professional lives by shifting back and forth between independent work and traditional employment.

Often workers choose to go independent to explore new opportunities, learn new skills or gain flexibility. Later on, many rotate back to traditional jobs.

The most extreme version of career nomads are digital nomads. And as with career nomads, millennials are particularly interested in spending some part of their careers as digital nomads.

Talent mobility is a growing fact of corporate life, especially among highly skilled workers. Hiring organizations need to accept and adapt to this new reality.