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You Plan for Your Organization's Resilience. But What About Your Own Career?
2027 is approaching. Are you positioning yourself for success or simply hoping for the best?
Here's a question I want every resilience professional to consider as we approach 2027: When was the last time you invested as much thought into your own career strategy as you do into your organization's resilience program?
Think about it. We spend our professional lives identifying vulnerabilities, assessing risks, developing strategies, evaluating capabilities, and preparing organizations for whatever might come their way. Yet, when it comes to our own careers, how many of us actually follow a similar process?
We get comfortable. We get busy. We tell ourselves we'll update our resumes, pursue that certification, expand our professional networks, or explore new career opportunities when things settle down. Then another year passes.
I've spent nearly three decades recruiting, researching, and coaching professionals within the resilience industry, and one thing has become abundantly clear: Career success rarely happens by accident. The professionals who continue to grow aren't necessarily the smartest people in the room or those with the most certifications. They're often the ones who recognize their strengths, understand where they need to improve, and deliberately invest in their professional development.
No one is born brilliant. Knowledge, expertise, confidence, and leadership capabilities are developed through experience, learning, and a willingness to step outside your comfort zone.
With 2027 right around the corner, I challenge you to stop thinking about what you'd like to accomplish and start developing a plan to make it happen.
First, Take an Honest Look at Where You Stand
Before you can determine where you want to go, you need to understand where you are today. One of my favorite career planning exercises is a good old-fashioned SWOT analysis. Yes, the same methodology many of us use in business strategy can be incredibly valuable when applied to our own careers.
Start by identifying your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
Your strengths might include extensive crisis management experience, executive engagement, global program leadership, or expertise in a highly regulated industry. Perhaps you've successfully built a resilience program from the ground up, managed complex organizational disruptions, or developed strong relationships across multiple business functions.
Now comes the part that requires a little humility. What are your weaknesses? Maybe you haven't had much exposure to cyber resilience, third-party risk management, or emerging operational resilience regulations. Perhaps you struggle with public speaking, executive presentations, or influencing stakeholders without direct authority. These are all areas that can be developed, but only if you're willing to acknowledge them.
Next, consider your opportunities. Could you volunteer to lead a cross-functional initiative? Pursue a certification? Find a mentor? Expand your responsibilities? Present at an industry conference? There may be opportunities sitting right in front of you that you've never considered.
Finally, what could threaten your career growth? Are your skills becoming too narrowly focused? Is your organization limiting your professional development? Could technology, automation, evolving regulations, or organizational restructuring impact your position? Are you keeping pace with the direction the profession is heading?
Here's where I want to challenge you: Don't simply evaluate yourself based on what you're good at today. Evaluate yourself against the professional you want to become.
Stop Guessing. Benchmark Yourself Against Your Peers.
This is one of the most important career planning exercises I encourage resilience professionals to undertake, and surprisingly, it's one that many overlook.
How do you know whether your experience, credentials, and capabilities are competitive if you don't understand how they compare with other professionals in similar roles?
For more than 20 years, I've been conducting global compensation research within the resilience profession. While compensation is certainly an important component of our research, the findings offer so much more than salary information.
Our 2026 Global Compensation Report for Resiliency Professionals, now in its 24th edition, provides insights into the professional backgrounds, qualifications, responsibilities, and experiences of resilience professionals around the world.
Consider some of the findings from this year's research. Professionals holding multiple industry certifications earned approximately 7% more than those with a single certification. Those with 11 or more years of global resilience planning experience showed a compensation differential of approximately 34% compared with professionals without comparable global experience. Our research also examines experience developing programs, managing crisis activations, engaging executive leadership, and other competencies that can influence career progression.
These findings aren't a guarantee that earning another certification or gaining a particular experience will automatically increase your salary. However, they provide valuable insight into the characteristics and experiences associated with different compensation levels and career responsibilities.
And here's where the research becomes particularly useful.
Our customized peer benchmarking dashboards allow you to look beyond broad industry averages and evaluate how your own background compares with a more relevant group of resilience professionals.
Are your certifications aligned with your peers? How does your experience managing program activations compare? Have you developed the leadership, global planning, and executive engagement experience commonly found among professionals at your target career level? Is your compensation competitive relative to the professionals you're benchmarking against?
These are the types of questions you should be asking before setting your career goals for 2027.
One important deadline I don't want you to miss: Our customized 2026 compensation benchmarking dashboards are available only through December 31, 2026. The global report will remain available, but the next round of customized peer data won't be ready until summer 2027.
That means if you're planning to use this research to guide your professional development, evaluate your marketability, or prepare for compensation discussions in early 2027, now is the time to obtain your customized findings.
Rather than relying on assumptions about where you stand in the profession, why not use actual industry research to help inform your next move?
Turn Your Career Aspirations Into SMART Goals
Once you've completed your SWOT analysis and evaluated how your skills and experiences compare with your peers, it's time to put that information to work.
I'm a big believer in SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. They're not particularly exciting on their own, but they're incredibly effective when you actually use them.
Saying you want to advance your career, become a better leader, or earn more money isn't a strategy. Those are aspirations. Without a plan, they can easily remain aspirations for years.
Let's say your long-term goal is to move from a Business Continuity Manager position into a Director of Operational Resilience role. Your SWOT analysis identifies limited executive presentation experience as a weakness, while your peer benchmarking findings suggest that professionals at your target level often have broader leadership and enterprise-level responsibilities.
A meaningful SMART goal might be to lead two executive-level resilience presentations by the end of Q2 2027, volunteer to participate in a cross-functional operational resilience initiative, and complete a relevant professional development course by Q3.
Perhaps your goal is to strengthen your marketability in cyber resilience or third-party risk management. Rather than simply adding those terms to your resume, identify opportunities to gain actual experience. Partner with your cybersecurity team, participate in a supplier resilience assessment, or take responsibility for a new initiative that expands your expertise.
And don't overlook the soft skills that employers consistently seek. Communication, emotional intelligence, situational awareness, critical thinking, business acumen, and the ability to influence others are increasingly important as resilience programs expand across organizational disciplines.
You don't have to manage a team to demonstrate leadership. You don't have to hold an executive title to influence change. And you certainly don't have to wait for your employer to hand you every professional development opportunity.
Sometimes the biggest obstacle to career advancement isn't a lack of opportunity. It's waiting for someone else to create that opportunity for you.
Your Professional Brand Matters More Than You Think
Here's another question worth asking: If someone reviewed your resume or LinkedIn profile today, would they understand the value you bring to an organization?
I work with professionals who have accomplished some truly impressive things throughout their careers, yet you'd never know it by reviewing their resumes. Their profiles often read like job descriptions rather than a reflection of their expertise, accomplishments, and impact.
If you've strengthened organizational resilience, reduced operational vulnerabilities, improved recovery capabilities, influenced executive decisions, or built successful programs, make sure those accomplishments are visible.
And please don't wait until you're actively looking for a new position to update your professional presence.
Your LinkedIn profile, professional relationships, industry involvement, and reputation are all part of your personal brand. Think about what you want to be known for within the resilience profession. Are you viewed as a strategic advisor? A trusted partner? A technical expert? A problem solver? Someone who can translate complex resilience challenges into meaningful business outcomes?
Your personal brand develops over time through your actions, relationships, and accomplishments. Be intentional about it.
I also encourage professionals to step outside their comfort zones. Volunteer to speak at an industry event, publish an article, mentor another professional, participate in an association, or contribute to a working group. These experiences can strengthen your confidence, expand your network, and demonstrate capabilities that may not be obvious from your current job title.
Don't Forget That Career Success Is Personal
Not everyone wants to become a Chief Resilience Officer, manage a global team, or climb the corporate ladder. And that's perfectly fine.
For some professionals, success means greater responsibility and compensation. For others, it means moving into consulting, becoming a subject matter expert, finding more meaningful work, or achieving a better balance between professional and personal commitments.
Your career strategy should reflect what matters to you, not simply what someone else considers successful.
I've worked with professionals who accepted promotions or new positions because they looked impressive on paper, only to discover that the responsibilities, organizational culture, or lifestyle weren't aligned with their personal goals.
Be thoughtful about what you're working toward. More money and a bigger title aren't always synonymous with greater career satisfaction.
And remember that your career plan isn't something you develop once and file away. Revisit it throughout the year. Your interests, circumstances, and opportunities will evolve, just as the resilience profession continues to evolve.
2027 Is Coming. What Are You Going to Do Differently?
If you've made it this far, I hope I've encouraged you to think a little differently about your career.
Here's my challenge: Before the end of 2026, set aside a few hours specifically for yourself. Not your employer. Not your program. Not your next project. Your career.
Conduct your SWOT analysis. Evaluate your experience and credentials against your peers. Identify the skills you need to develop. Document three to five SMART goals for 2027, including specific actions and deadlines. Update your resume and LinkedIn profile to reflect your accomplishments, and determine how you'll hold yourself accountable throughout the year.
Most importantly, don't simply write down your goals and forget about them. Put them somewhere visible. Schedule time to work on them. Revisit your progress every few months and make adjustments when necessary.
I've said it for years, and I'll say it again: No one is born brilliant. You have to invest in yourself.
You dedicate so much of your professional life to ensuring your organization is prepared for the future. Isn't it time you gave your own future that same level of attention?
And one final reminder: If you want to incorporate meaningful peer benchmarking into your 2027 career strategy, don't miss the December 31 deadline for our customized 2026 compensation dashboards. Once that window closes, the next customized findings won't be available until summer 2027.
The report shows the market. Your customized dashboard shows where you fit within it.
Need a Little Help Developing Your 2027 Career Strategy?
At Resilience360 Advisory, we help professionals across business continuity, operational resilience, crisis management, IT disaster recovery, cyber resilience, and third-party/supplier resilience take a more strategic approach to their careers.
With nearly three decades of specialized recruiting experience and more than 20 years of compensation research, I offer personalized career coaching to help professionals evaluate their marketability, strengthen their resumes and LinkedIn profiles, prepare for interviews, navigate compensation discussions, and develop actionable career strategies.
Whether you're actively exploring a new opportunity or simply want to make sure you're positioning yourself for long-term success, I'd be delighted to help.
Here's to making 2027 a year of intentional career growth. Now go make it happen!
About Resilience360 Advisory
At Resilience360 Advisory, we combine nearly three decades of specialized resilience recruiting experience with more than 20 years of industry research to help professionals advance their careers and organizations strengthen their resilience capabilities.
For resilience professionals, we offer personalized career coaching, resume and LinkedIn development, interview preparation, job search strategy, and compensation benchmarking to help individuals better understand their marketability, identify professional development opportunities, and position themselves for long-term career success.
For organizations, we provide specialized recruiting, strategic staffing, compensation and workforce benchmarking, and research-driven program advisory services to support informed talent and resilience management decisions.
Our annual Global Compensation and Resilience Management Trends studies, along with customized peer benchmarking dashboards, provide valuable insights into the skills, credentials, experience, compensation, and program practices shaping the profession.
Planning your career goals for 2027? Explore our career coaching services and complimentary career resources. And don't miss the opportunity to obtain your customized 2026 compensation benchmarking dashboard before December 31, as the next customized data won't be available until summer 2027.
Resilience360 Advisory | Career Success • Program Counsel • Strategic Staffing
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