Would your company choose you again for your current role?

By Susana von der Heide Founder & Thinking Partner at VON DER HEIDE

Some questions cut deeper than we want to admit. The kind that connects us to a truth we’d rather not face. The kind that, if we answer honestly, can shake us harder than any tech disruption ever could.

They don’t have clear-cut answers. They demand silence, pause, and an uncomfortable kind of honesty. Would your company choose you again for your current role?

Not whether they’d keep you. Not whether they’d keep paying you. If they had to start from scratch today – no backstory, no tenure, no loyalty points – would they pick you for that seat again?

Internal Employability: The Sharpest Mirror

We usually talk about employability like it’s only a concern for people looking for a new job. A LinkedIn thing. Something for interviews and headhunters.

But real employability is more personal – and more urgent. It’s about staying relevant inside the company you’re already in. It’s about being someone your team and your leaders would still choose today.

And that’s not just about degrees, certificates, or a killer network. It’s something deeper: the ability to keep adding value in a world that changes every single day.

So, what is employability really? Simple – but not easy: it’s the likelihood that someone would choose you (or re-choose you) in a specific context. There are no guarantees. No contract can promise it. Only the possibility – and that possibility moves at the pace of change.

We can be replaced by a piece of tech. But we can also be replaced by someone else. Or worse: by inertia, when we stop evolving.

So, what do we do with that kind of vulnerability?

Fear. That’s natural. But fear doesn’t stop us from moving forward. What does? Choosing to stay still. And in the workplace, staying still is the same as choosing not to pick ourselves anymore.

That’s where a new concept I’ve been working on comes in: Surfability. Because the goal isn’t to avoid the waves of change. It’s to learn how to ride them.

Surfability is a mindset. A stance. It’s what happens when talent meets resilience. When vulnerability pairs with courage. When we move forward – aware, intentional, grounded. It’s knowing the future isn’t shaped by the wave itself, but by how we choose to stand on it.

The challenge isn’t just to change. The real challenge is to deserve to stay in that seat.

Today, being employable is more than having technical skills. It’s about having a voice that matters. A fresh, current perspective. It’s about being willing to adapt before someone else forces you to.

It’s about not waiting around for the perfect wave – and training for every kind instead. Because in a world where algorithms learn faster than we do, the true edge isn’t information. It’s awareness. It’s attitude. It’s surfability.

So, what about you?

Would you choose yourself again?

Would your team choose you again?

Would your company… put you back in that seat?