(FORTUNE Magazine) – ANJU JESSANI has an impressive resume -- Wharton MBA, United Brands, Price Waterhouse, Chase Manhattan -- but she never really had to look for a job. The recruiters had always come to her. That all changed two years ago when Chase downsized her out of her post as a manager of financial products and services for corporate treasurers. After 12 tedious months of searching, she landed a similar position in a different industry: designing, developing, and marketing credit rating analyses at Standard & Poor's. Says Jessani, 35: ''You see all these reductions going on around you. But if you are doing good work and adding value to the organization, you somehow feel that you are immune.'' Good work? Adding value? These are no longer defenses against searing competition, rapid technological change, and relentless restructuring. Only 55% of employees surveyed by Wyatt Co., a human resources consulting firm, believe their company provides security to workers who perform well. If you are the typical FORTUNE reader -- well educated, hardworking, and high aiming -- then you too are vulnerable to being displaced (nobody says ''fired'' anymore). The U.S. unemployment rate may be inching down, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that joblessness among managers and professionals is still 19.4% higher than at the bottom of the recession. Regardless of where you open your briefcase each day -- at a large corporation, a small business, or the end of your dining room table -- the message is the same. You are on your own. The paternalistic model of long-term employment is dead and buried. Says William Morin, chairman of Drake Beam Morin, the biggest outplacement firm: ''We've broken the whole mommy and daddy syndrome. Nobody else is responsible for your happiness. You have to see yourself as a business. That is your job.'' Brace yourself for a future that may include consulting, temping (yes, temping), running your own business, working from home, returning to college, shifting careers, or all of the above. Nearly 45 million people, more than one-third of the American work force, are either self-employed or working as temps, part-timers, or consultants, calculates Richard Belous, chief economist of the National Planning Association. This so-called contingent work force has grown 57% since 1980, three times faster than the labor force as a whole. To prosper in this volatile world of work, you must be ready to reinvent yourself. Terri Stynes, 34, had been managing people since she was 21, and a manager was what she thought she would always be. Stynes was in charge of late debt collection at Bank of America's credit card division in San Francisco, with 75 people reporting to her. Then the bank decided to relocate her operation to Phoenix. By the time she got to Phoenix, Stynes figured, her heart (husband, family, and friends) would be left in San Francisco. So she stayed put -- and took a gamble. Leafing through the 100-page Career Opportunities Bulletin that Bank of America publishes every fortnight, Stynes was drawn to a notice for an employee assistance consultant. The squib demanded at least five years' experience in human resources. Stynes had none. But she applied anyway -- and got the job. How? By persuading her future boss that her years as a manager had given her the techniques necessary to communicate one-on-one with employees. Outspoken and energetic, Stynes now arranges counseling for workers with personal problems, especially drug and alcohol abuse. She offers this advice to other uprooted managers: ''Be creative. Don't limit yourselves to a small sense of who you are and what you can do. Skills are more transferable than most people think.'' Dealing with substance abusers, she has discovered, is not all that different from her previous experiences dealing with deadbeats -- or with bill collectors, for that matter. Stynes loves her new job, but that doesn't mean she has stopped managing her . career. Says she: ''It used to be that people got rewarded for loyalty, but it isn't that way anymore. I have to be prepared every day for my job to disappear.'' Although that seems unlikely, Stynes wants some insurance. She plans to go back to college at night to earn a master's degree in social work, a qualification that could help her find an employee assistance position someplace else. As work becomes more temporary, temporaries are doing more of the work. If you still think of a temp as someone who fills in when the receptionist has the flu, it's time to update your image. For a fast-growing number of managers and professionals, work is now a concatenation of stints, ranging from two weeks to two years. This phenomenon, known variously as interim management, professional assignment, or even head renting, is growing faster than anyone can track it. Executive Recruiter News estimates that at least 125,000 professionals labor as temps every day. Their share of the $25 billion annual temporary work market has doubled -- to about $1.3 billion -- in the past year, according to the National Association of Temporary Services. But these numbers surely underestimate the upsurge. They don't include the thousands of managers who classify themselves as self-employed consultants. They don't count people like Dick Ferrington, 48, who lives in San Francisco with a wife, two teenage children, several pets, a house -- and no fixed occupational address. He has voluntarily -- and enthusiastically -- made a career of working ''on assignment,'' as he says, for seven of the past nine years. In 1992 he earned more than $100,000. That's a nice income, but if you are contemplating this work style, remember that Ferrington's compensation does not include health insurance premiums, vacation pay, pension contributions, or any of the other goodies that most big companies still provide. He has to come up with $15,000 a year in pretax income just to buy health and disability coverage for himself and his family. An expert in employee training, Ferrington rose to the rank of a human resources director at Crocker Bank before he decided to strike out on his own in 1984. His current assignment is typical: He is serving as interim vice president for human resources at Scios Nova, a Silicon Valley biotechnology company that recently went public. The company has retained Ferrington for six months while it seeks a replacement for its previous HR chief, who left on short notice. Ferrington, who says he left the corporate world because he had grown ''bored and sick of the B.S.,'' still recommends that managers do a tour of duty at a FORTUNE 500 or Service 500 company. Says he: ''If you accept the premise that there is no loyalty anymore, that there are no jobs for life, then you need to develop the skills that people will pay for. The best way to do that is to learn from the people who will eventually buy those skills from you.'' Ferrington had a staff of 30 when he left Crocker. Today he has an office at home (equipped with a PC, fax board, and printer) and a staff of none, but he knows how to put together a team of specialists -- other freelancers like himself -- when a job requires it. His almost nonexistent overhead gives him a big price advantage against the established training firms with which he often competes. Like many interim managers, Ferrington describes assignment work as a liberating and -- dare we use the word? -- empowering experience. He sometimes puts his feelings into his own special brand of poetry:

The false security of a company Will never control my life. I have faith in myself That I will continue to provide A comfortable upper middle class life For my dogs, my cats, My kids, and my wife.

Immensely helping Ferrington's ability to maintain that lifestyle is the emergence of a new breed of job broker: the interim management firm. Ferrington has signed on with four such firms, including one called M 2. Founded in 1989 by two veterans of major management consulting firms, M 2 maintains a database of 2,500 self-employed Bay Area consultants, whose average professional experience is 15.5 years. Let's say a software company needs a controller who has managed an initial public offering. M 2 will mine its database, which contains 120 fields of information on each consultant, and come up with a handful of candidates. The client company selects an interim manager and pays her or him (57% of the consultants are women) from $40 to $150 per hour, but no health insurance or other benefits. M 2's fees, also paid by the client, run another 25% to 35%. Consultants pay M 2 only a one-time ante of $10 to have their resumes entered into the computer. Says Marion McGovern, president and co-founder of M 2: ''Four years ago there was the notion that our consultants were just people who couldn't get a real job. Now more employers are buying into the concept.'' Nationwide, the number of firms that place interim managers has grown to 107, up from 77 in 1991, according to a directory published by National Business Employment Weekly (April 16 issue; reprints $3 from P.O. Box 300, Princeton, New Jersey 08543.) To become an interim manager you don't necessarily have to go where the work is. With the help of phones, faxes, and modems, you may be able to persuade employers to let the work come to you. Mary Tevis is a telecommuting temp. Logically enough, she works for a phone company. A 13-year veteran of AT&T, Tevis learned two years ago that she had become ''available for reassignment.'' That was Ma Bell's way of telling her that her job as a manager of software maintenance in the Naperville, Illinois, computer systems division would be logged off. AT&T let her stay on the payroll for eight months while she hunted for another post within the company. It was, she thought, ample time. But Tevis, a longtime Chicago-area resident, found nothing near home, and she had no desire to relocate.

Just two weeks before the clock ran down, Tevis found a new job -- in New Jersey. But she didn't have to move. Operating out of an office in Naperville, she is now on a team based in the Garden State that provides support services for customers with ''800'' numbers. HELPING Tevis broker her new assignment was an unusual program called Resource Link. Begun in October 1991, Resource Link is an in-house temporary service made up of 300 AT&T managers and professionals, most of whom have been displaced from other jobs. After an initial eight-month trial, during which Tevis demonstrated that she could keep in touch, her boss renewed her contract for another year. Emphatically upbeat, Tevis hopes the temporary position will become what AT&T calls ''traditional'' by December. Sign of the times: The company no longer calls any jobs ''permanent.'' In this new age of impermanence and uncertainty, staying in touch -- with colleagues, friends, neighbors, customers, suppliers, and just about anybody you can think of -- is one of the keys to keeping yourself employable. Study after study shows that most people find new jobs not by sending out resumes or responding to want ads but by using connections. In other words, by networking. We're not talking about schmoozing. Networking is serious business. In fact, it is a business. If you feel your own circle of friends is too small, too narrowly focused, or too provincial, then you can buy into a professionally managed network. If you earn (or if you used to earn) at least $75,000 a year, and you can spare $260 for the annual dues, you can join Exec-U-Net, a nationwide association of managers and professionals based in Weston, Connecticut. Exec-U-Net's newsletter, published every two weeks, provides an average of 150 job leads, none of which have been advertised. Most come from the group's 2,000 members. Since the members live all over the U.S. and represent a broad spectrum of occupations, they're rarely competing with each other for the same jobs. Also, 60% of Exec-U-Net's members are currently employed. (For more information, call 800-637-3126.) If you're unemployed, consider joining a local networking group made up of people from your own profession. While these groups aren't listed in the yellow pages, they are often based at outplacement firms. Iris Frank, a former human resources manager at Nynex, the New York-based Baby Bell, runs the Westchester HR Roundtable in space provided by Nynex's office in White Plains, New York. In addition to swapping job leads, the group, which meets every three weeks, listens to speakers on such topics as civil rights law, sexual harassment, and alternative dispute resolution. Says Frank: ''Network meetings are a way to stay current with your profession. When you go out on interviews, you have to show that you're still up to date. You can't appear stagnant.'' When the volatility of the corporate world seems unbearable, some managers try something more stable -- like starting their own business. Sound crazy? Not to Jonathan Poppick, a former marketing executive at L'Oreal. Poppick, 39, left the cosmetics giant in 1989 when the company was soliciting voluntary resignations. Drawing $10,000 from savings and living off the combination of his severance pay and his wife's salary, he started JP Partners Ltd., a Dunellen, New Jersey, fragrance business that makes potpourri and herbal bath products. With L'Oreal, Yardley, Coty, and other major toiletries companies among his customers, Poppick is rolling in clover. Well, almost. During his first year in business, he broke even. The second year he did well, the third year he struggled with flat sales, and this year, he believes, will be his best ever. The roller-coaster nature of entrepreneurial life took a toll on his marriage, which recently ended in divorce. A loquacious marketeer involved in two other fledgling businesses, < Poppick admits he misses the camaraderie of corporate life. But he has no desire to reenter the corporate world: ''Working for a corporation, you never really know what your job security is. For whatever reason, they may have to cut head count. Having my own business I feel like I'm more in control.'' To get control of your career, you sometimes have to go back to school -- even if your hair has turned gray, your kids have grown up, and your friends are thinking about retirement. Larry French, 52, worked for 23 years in technical and managerial positions in Clark Equipment's graphic arts center. He followed when Clark spun the business off, then resigned in 1986, just before the fledgling company went under. He took a series of jobs with small graphics companies near his home in Berrien Springs, Michigan, but none worked out. When he was laid off from the third job, French finally came to terms with his problem: an outdated set of skills, especially with computers. Says he: ''I came to realize that I was slowly being pushed out to the rim of the work force because I didn't have the knowledge to be in the core.'' IN AN EFFORT to clamber back into that core, French enrolled full time at DeVry Institute of Technology in Addison, Illinois, not far from Chicago. A trim, congenial man, he worked three part-time jobs to help support himself. His wife, who runs a program for the elderly, remained in Michigan. Long separated and under financial pressure, they eventually sold their house and parted ways. Larry French lost his job, his house, and his wife -- but not his hope or his head. In June he received a BS degree in telecommunications management. As we went to press, he had several promising job prospects. Says he: ''There is work there to be had if you want to go get it. It's not going to come to you.'' One can go get it in many ways. Readers of a recent issue of the Chicago- area edition of the Wall Street Journal were greeted by a highly unusual full-page ad: 92 small-print resumes from 92 senior executives, each displaced from a six-figure job. The ad, paid for by the execs, touted ''proven track records'' and their eagerness to work: ''We're ready to go. We hit the ground running.'' In the week following the ad's publication, the group received more than 100 inquiries from prospective employers. Says Chris Hetzel, an organizer of the executives: ''We're the quiet generation, the Eisenhower generation. Well, we're not keeping our mouths shut anymore. We went to college, got married, got jobs, had kids. Now we're saying, 'Hey, this is not turning out the way it was supposed to.' '' No, it is not. But the brave new world of work is still a work in progress. As long ago as 1988, FORTUNE chronicled the spread of the ''disposable worker.'' Now it's time to think of the recyclable worker. If we can do it with bottles, cans, and newspapers, we ought to be able to do it with our most valuable asset -- ourselves.

BOX: FIVE TIPS FOR STAYING AHEAD

-- Think of your career broadly -- skills are more transferable than you suspect.

-- Get to know the many new firms that place interim managers.

-- Be prepared for telecommuting.

-- Work harder than ever at keeping up with colleagues, friends, neighbors, customers, suppliers.

-- Never stop upgrading your skills.