What Maduro’s Ousting in Venezuela Revealed About Our Volatile Job Market
Global volatility touches all of us—regardless of industry, country, or seniority. This article explores the lessons we can learn from recent events in Venezuela, and applies those to issues of career security and longevity.
The recent events in Venezuela made me realize just how vulnerable professionals across North America really are—regardless of industry, title, or employment status
When global power shifts like this occur—through energy, geopolitics, AI, or capital—here’s what often happens:
Hiring freezes that don’t make headlines
Job searches that drag on without feedback
Promotions or pay increases that never materialize
Roles or job postings that quietly disappear
And when these major events happen seemingly at random, it creates a prevailing sense of uncertainty and risk aversion across global markets and workplaces. If you’re unemployed, you may already be experiencing this. If you’re employed, you may be feeling it silently.
The world didn’t collapse, but the career contract did
For decades, professionals operated under an unspoken agreement:
Work hard.
Build experience.
Stay loyal.
Get ahead.
But that agreement is gone.
What Venezuela represents isn't chaos, but more uncertainty to already fragile economic assumptions—and around who holds leverage.
As it turns out, the world is much more volatile than we’ve become accustomed to. And that impacts everything, including the traditional career contract that we’ve all been raised on.
When uncertainty rises, employers respond by hedging, delaying decisions and minimizing their risk.
Here's what we see:
Fewer permanent roles
More “perfect fit” hiring
Slower hiring and longer hiring cycles
Less tolerance for anything that looks uncertain
This may be different depending on your role—but it affects everyone.
If you’re unemployed, this is why your search feels personal
If you’re unemployed and actively search for work, you’re likely feeling this rupture in the career contract head on. You’re applying. You’re qualified. You’re doing what you’re told.
And yet:
You’re getting ghosted
You’re hearing “great background, but we've gone with a different candidate”
You’re competing against people who look almost identical on paper (including those who are AI generated)
You’re starting to wonder if the market is broken, or if you are
But here’s what nobody's telling you: The market isn’t rejecting your experience. It’s struggling to understand your value.
In volatile conditions, employers don’t hire potential. They hire clarity. They look for the safe bet to hedge against risk. Beyond just what you can do, they want to know:
Who are you beyond your resume?
What impact is someone guaranteed to get from you?
What current pain point can you solve?
When employers can’t quickly see:
What problem you solve;
What makes you different; and
How you reduce risk…
… they move on, even if you're a capable candidate or a ‘good, loyal employee’. This isn’t about you as an employee. It’s about companies responding and adapting to the volatility that exists around them.
If you’re employed, this is why you still feel exposed
If you’re employed, you may be telling yourself:
“I should be grateful.” “At least I have a job.” “Now isn’t the time to make waves.”
But underneath that gratitude is:
Plateaued growth
Missed promotions
Raises that never come
Fear of being automated, reorganized, or replaced
A sense that decisions are being made about you—not with you
You’re still inside "the system", but you don’t feel protected by it anymore.
And your instinct is correct. As this volatility grows, so too will the risks that you face. That uneasy feeling will only get more profound.
Stories like Venezuela aren’t an energy story—they’re career volatility stories
Energy professionals are seeing this phenomenon first because volatility has always been part of the deal in this sector.
What’s different now is that volatility has gone cross-industry.
The same patterns are showing up in:
Tech
Finance
Operations
Marketing
HR
Engineering
Consulting
Leadership roles at every level
Different titles. Same outcome. Same drivers.
Employers are narrowing roles. Professionals are absorbing more risk individually.
This isn’t a hiring collapse. It’s the market no longer giving people the benefit of the doubt and where waiting starts to cost you.
There’s a new divide in the job market
We’ve crossed an invisible line in the job market—one that we all must come to terms with and adapt to.
The divide is no longer: Employed vs. Unemployed.
It’s Clear vs. Exposed
The old assumption in employer circles is that:
Employment = job security
A strong resume is enough
Loyalty buys time
Silence is safer
With extreme volatility and risk aversion, that old assumption gets thrown out the window, making way for a new reality.
The new reality is:
Knowing your value = career security
A clear brand is essential
Being paid to solve current pain points buys relevancy
Invisibility = risk
This is why unemployed professionals feel panicked, and employed professionals feel uneasy.
Different symptoms. Same root issue.
The job market isn’t dead—it’s just raising the bar
Many professionals who are scrolling job boards and feeling discouraged need to realize that work isn’t disappearing. It’s just not available the way people typically look for it.
New roles are opening up this year.
They just don’t look like tidy job descriptions or obvious promotions. They're laying dormant in the hidden job market.
What’s gaining traction right now looks more like:
Being paid for current important pain points—which may shift on a dime and require nimble workers willing to multi-task or adapt
Short-term or fractional leadership work (operations, finance, transformation, people)
Energy-adjacent roles tied to infrastructure, resilience, carbon, and efficiency
Professionals who can apply AI in real, practical work—not “AI experts”
Risk, compliance, cybersecurity, and governance roles
People who understand systems like supply chain, execution, operations
Project-based or consulting work tied to outcomes, not titles
Cross-border roles, often paid in USD and done remotely
None of these roles reward keeping your head down, waiting your turn, or collecting more credentials.
They reward people who can clearly explain what they do, why it matters, and how it helps someone solve a real, current important problem. They reward people with clearly defined career brands who can immediately address their (often) rapidly changing job requirements.
The most dangerous move right now? Doing nothing
Whether you’re employed or not, doing nothing or waiting can feel like the responsible choice.
But in this market, waiting quietly has a cost.
If you’re unemployed, you lose momentum, and confidence takes a hit. If you’re employed, you lose options without realizing it. If the day comes that you’re on the losing end of a reduction in force (RIF), you’ll quickly realize that doing nothing during good times makes bad times significantly harder.
When change finally shows up—a layoff, a reorg, a missed opportunity—it usually comes out of nowhere. Most people don’t see it coming. They just feel blindsided by it.
Doing nothing makes it worse.
What career-secure professionals do during volatile job markets
When faced with a volatile job market, career-secure professionals share specific traits. They don’t panic. They don’t rage-quit. They don’t announce to the world that they’re “looking.”
They do three simple—but strategic—things:
They get clear on how to explain their value in plain language
They stop tying their identity to one job, one title, one industry or one employer
They build options before they’re forced to use them
They don’t do this to chase jobs. They do it to take charge over their own careers and professional identities to broaden their options, and to stop feeling trapped.
Final thoughts: the job market is volatile, but there is hope
The biggest career risk in 2026 isn’t being unemployed.
It’s being asked, “So what do you do?” and realizing you don’t know how to answer it in a way the market or a different industry understands.
Volatility events like Venezuela didn’t create that problem.
It just made it harder to ignore how fast the rules can change. And it highlighted how exposed people feel when they don’t have clarity or know who they are, their value and what differentiates them from others who look the same on paper.
Job security isn’t what it used to be. Career security is.
And career security starts with knowing your value beyond your resume, and being able to explain it clearly, without feeling like you’re selling yourself.
If you’re unemployed and exhausted from chasing roles that don’t see you, or employed and quietly wondering how exposed you really are…
Here’s a free video that explains how professionals across North America can rebuild career security—practically, discreetly, and without blowing up their lives.
Watch it here: www.land-higher.com