STEP UP your career The career planning of an individual should, therefore, involve measures to identify his skills, abilities and capabilities. He has to give importance to flexibility rather than security, thus developing a capacity to learn, re-learn, hone various skills to sustain in flatter organisations and be able to adjust to various work cultures. The first step that an individual should take before planning his career is self -assessment: Identify roles that are important to you in your life---like career, family, leisure, religion, community, and voluntary activities. Imagine an ideal job for you: the activities, people, rewards, and other features that would be a part of your job experience. What would it be like? Certain attitudes that you may have formed in early childhood might anchor you to certain types of careers. Career anchors are based on these characteristics or attitudes which guide people through out their careers. Know whether your needs and drives are guiding you to pursue a career which has managerial competence, technical/functional competence, security/stability, innovation and creativity, service or challenge, freedom of independence and autonomy. Describe your values and how important they are for you in your work: Pleasant working conditions, equality, sense of achievement, financial independence or autonomy, creating something new, variety of tasks, job security, friendship at work, loyalty and helping others. The best career decision is to choose something you really like to do. The late Art Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ NFL franchise, bought the Steelers for $2500 because of his love for sports. The value of the business increased 60-70 times the original investment over the years — all because of his love for the game. Career planning refers to the process by which an individual selects career goals and the path to these goals. To plan your career you should: Describe your career goals for the next five/10 years. Identify the specific things you will need to do to meet your goals. Not be blind to the internal and external obstacles you might encounter along the way toward achievement of your goals. Describe any skills or assistance you will need to meet your goals. Individuals might need to develop and become strong in the following skills more thoroughly to prepare for the future: n Communication —written, oral and listening. n Management skills-supervising, planning, organising, motivating, delegating and persuading others. n Interpersonal skills- working effectively with others. n Team Building-working effectively with groups or teams. n Sales/ Promotion-ability to persuade, negotiate and influence. n Creativity and innovativeness for generating ideas. n Scientific skills- investigative abilities researching and analysing. n Training skills:ability to teach skills to others. n Office skills: word processing, filing, bookkeeping, record keeping. n Service skills: handling complaints and maintaining good customer relations. n Mathematical skills: computation ability, budgeting & accounting proficiency. n Ensure commitment to your goals. Albuquerque businessman Jeff Stone gave his definition of a career: “People think a career is important and that young men and women often spend a lot of time planning and preparing for one, but actually a career is what happens next, and that includes a lot of hard work and luck.” Make your career plans and chart a career path for yourself but always keep in mind that planning is just a beginning. It’s the hard work that makes a career. “After three years of delivering over 400 copies of The Portland Oregonian, beginning at 3.30 a.m, seven days a week, rain or shine, was a powerful incentive to find a job that started later, paid better, and offered working conditions indoors. After wearing out several bicycles, maybe that’s when I truly began my life’s interest in cars.” Perhaps the importance of hard work cannot be illustrated better than these few words spoken by Donald E. Petersen, former chairman and CEO of Ford.
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In today’s dynamic work environment, there are a large number of choices and opportunities available to an individual for career advancement. Job progressions are faster and the youth is choosing boundary-less careers rather than lifetime employment in the same concern.
