Chapter 1: Career Planning

Career planning is a lifelong process, which includes choosing an occupation, getting a job, growing in that job, possibly changing careers, and eventually retiring. This may happen once in our lifetime, but it is more likely to happen several times as we first define and then redefine ourselves and our goals. Effective career planning prepares you for the world of work before you graduate and puts you on the right track as early as your first year.

· Knowing yourself

· Exploring options

· Matching with options

· Going for the action

Let’s take a look at each of them.

Knowing Yourself (Gather information about yourself)

Before you can make a career choice you have to learn about yourself. Your values, interests, and skills, in combination with certain personality traits, () will make some careers especially suitable for you and some particularly inappropriate. (Which)

Self-Assessment: Self-assessment is the process of analyzing one-self to mine out information about themselves. If you want to plan your career effectively, this should be the first thing you do. A self- assessment should include your interests, values, expertise, personality, skills, and abilities. It should also include your weaknesses. Write them all on a paper so that it can be easier for you to analyse. Here’s an overview of the tools you can use to do your self-assessment.

Your values: Values are certain factors that satisfy you in your work and personal life. Examples of these values are higher salary, prestige, work environment, flexible work schedule, helping others, honesty, relationship etc. Find out your values, things that you care about the most. Now align those values with your potential careers.

Interests: To find out your interests, you have to list your likes and dislikes. There are certain things that you like and some you hate. Define them properly so that you can you don’t end up choosing a career where you have to do stuff that you don’t like. Examples of interests are reading, swimming, singing, sports, running etc.

Personality: Personality is your traits. Things that motivate you to do something. You need and attitudes also fall in your personality. Define your personality properly which will definitely come in handy while doing your self-assessment.

Skills: In this section of self-assessment, you have to identify the things that you are good at. There are certain skills that will help you to soar the growth of your career. This will also help you identify things that you enjoy doing. Skills are the most crucial part of your self-assessment.

Exploring options

After gathering information about yourself you will have some options to start with. It may include different employment outlook, salary or job duties. Explore those options and choose the suitable one.

1. Explore your desired occupations

2. Define related industries and analyze them.

3. Analyze the labor market

Matching with options

1. Identify feasible occupations

2. Evaluate them

3. Research those alternatives

4. Choose a short-term and a term option

You need to develop the steps you will have to take in order to reach your goal.

1. Exploring sources of extra mentoring and qualifications, if required

2. Developing a career search strategy

3. Collecting company information

4. Writing cover letter and Résumé

5. Grooming for job interview

You may think that you know everything about choosing the right career. Some people undermine the process of choosing their career and wind up choosing a career that they don’t enjoy. Here are some of the myths and misconceptions about choosing a career:

Choosing a career is simple: Choosing a career is not a simple process. Some people undermine the process. Career planning is an involved process and needs some serious time and effort. It involves learning and studying about yourself. Your interests, values, and desires. So, never underestimate the process of career planning.

I can’t make a living from my hobby: Some people deliberately ignore their hobbies while exploring career options. They believe that hobbies are no good for making money. This idea is totally wrong. There are people who are making a fortune out of the hobby that you are ignoring today. So, always keep your hobbies on the list of your career options before choosing the final one.

Money is happiness: While money is important to lead your life, it’s necessary that a lot of money will bring you happiness. Some people may be happy when they get the time to talk to their family member. So never focus on only the monetary factor rather focus on the things you enjoy doing. Money is the source of all happiness. Sometimes it is the main reason for causing devastation in your life.

Career cannot be changed: This is not true. If you do not like your career or you see a better opportunity in a different field then you can switch anytime. But it shouldn’t be very often. Average people tend to change their career 4 times in their lifetime.

If I change careers my skills will go to waste: Every occupation needs some unique skillsets. Every job needs verities of skills. Switching career won’t hurt your skills rather it will help you to develop new skills for your betterment. All of the skills will be useful in different ways for a different occupation.

If my best friend (or sister, uncle, or neighbor) is happy in a particular field, I will be too: Wrong! Everyone is different. Everyone has different interests, likes and dislikes, needs and wants. You friends happiness may not resemble with your happiness. That means their field of work is giving them happiness doesn’t mean it will give you happiness as well. If you like someone’s career then take a look at it. Invest your time to research the field and identify if it’s a fit for you.

You need to have written personal goals for the next 5 or 10 years. The goals should be specific, challenging, and realistic. Most people have not written down their personal goals for the next 5 or 10 years. But those who have usually benefit tremendously from this exercise. Try and see if you can fill up some of your personal goals:

Your self-appraisal may vary from others because people are different. Some of you will see your abilities and opportunities more realistically than others.

A career path is a sequence of logical promotions that flow from one to other. It helps you to see what career option you face. Most career paths are vertical; i.e. they involve upward promotions within the organization. For example, a typical management career path might be:

1. Entry-level job as skilled employee

2. First-level supervisor

3. District head

4. Division head

5. Department head

6. Vice-president

7. Board chairmen

Each of these higher levels usually requires more experience and higher skill level than the previous level. Pay also goes up at each level.