Like the saying goes, every journey begins with a single step. The career Journey begins somewhere and doesn’t necessarily follow a particular trend, but require advice from stage to stage. I remember while we were young, Our teacher always used to ask this Question. ”what would you like to become when you grow up?”. Back then you must have heard responses like…I would like to be a doctor, I would like to be an Engineer, A pilot, a Teacher, a police man … etc.
What this tells you is that when it comes to career, you will have a multitude of options to choose from. It can be a difficult task if you don’t know what to do, doesn’t have Idols or role models to follow. Join me towards the end of this discussion, as we will be discussing how to choose a career for beginners or those wishing to change their career. For now lets continue with our discussion of general career path.
Again its worth mentioning that career advice doesn’t end at choosing what you would like to become, it also goes in stages. First you will require an advice on what you would like to become, (Or your dream Job) also on what career to choose and how to go about it, or on how to go about working your not quite dream job.
- second what options you have in advancing your career,
- What are your options on excelling in your career; and lastly,
- what are your chances in starting your own business.
First lets all began by briefly discussing the general career path that everyone takes. That is advice on maintaining your current job, advancing your career, excelling your career and starting your own business.
Career Advice on your Dream Job
people say that dreams are valid but, my advice is you might never land on your so called dream job. Not ever job will address all your passion, the best career or Job is the one in which you will be able to use the skills you enjoy. You should use every job opportunity to learn new skills and trust me if you keep an open mind you will come to realize that you might end up enjoying doing something you never imagined you could.
Its all about altitude. Remember that a job doesn’t give you life meaning Life is about what you learn, about who you are or can become and most importantly who you love
Advice on how to advance your career
like we have earlier said sometimes its hard to land to your Dream job. But while working at our current job, what comes next is how to advance in your career. Life is always progressive so should your career. Many people tent to just sit, relax and live day by day once they get a job. what they forget is that time is moving and things are changing. In such situations, with a fast moving world soon they are caught up by either becoming irrelevant or replaced by younger candidates
My advice on advancing your career, you should always take time to think about your current state and what trends your future career might take. always visit your career network to check out new opportunities and to do some salary comparison
Make sure you work harder than everyone under you or above you in your work environment because this really makes you stand out for any promotions or new responsibilities. Remember that nothing commands respect more than a good work Ethic. In order to stand out always make sure that you are the first one to arrive or an event and always the last to leave.
Lastly I recommend having career mentors. Career mentors can identify opportunities for advancement one that you might have overlooked. Mentors guide you throw challenging projects, help you build relationships and most importantly influence your recommendation for special projects you might not have been considered
Opinion on Excelling in your career
In order to excel in anything, altitude is the corner stone or the base of everything. You can do anything with a positive altitude better than you can do it with a negative altitude.
Note that there will never be a precisely right moment to do anything. All you need to do is to take chance and don’t let negative thoughts like ”I don’t think i can do A,B,C,D” get into your way.
Always give room for opinions and suggestions. say yes to new Ideas, say yes to new friends, and most important say yes to learning new things. Never get discouraged by the word NO. you are likely to hear it many times before you achieve your goals. Just accept that as a fact and work towards polishing the reasons for rejection rather than lamenting on why you were rejected
Lastly never shy from asking for help. Note that asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, but its a strength on itself. Always remember that no one is perfect an everyone can also agree with me that nobody has ever reached where they are today without some type of help along their way. Also remember that its ethical an good to always return favor after being helped
Advice on starting your own Business
If we poll 100 people in random, trust me that 90% of them have lots of ideas they would like to turn into business one day. But note that in any business the most important thing is returns. If your ideas don’t turn into actual money , then its obvious you wouldn’t be able to turn them into business. You need to be able to distinguish between Hobbes and Passion, and what you can actually turn into a business
when it comes to business you need to understand working smart, and not working hard is essential to surviving as an entrepreneur. Note that you can get by working hard in a corporate word but trust me you wouldn’t last long with a small entrepreneurship without working smart
Lastly don’t let fear be the reason why your not going to start your business. All you need to do is let instincts and self preparation guide you as we all know you can fool everyone but its not possible to fool your self. Remember all the stories you’ve heard about most successful entrepreneur, they all started from somewhere, all with different jobs or interests, different amount of money but one thing they all had in common was the unyielding commitment to do whatever was necessary to make their dream a reality.
Like i earlier promised lets now dive into that discussion of beginning your career a fresh or changing your career.
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BECOME WHEN IN FUTURE?
Like I earlier said shouldn’t only be relevant to children but applies to each and every one of us. Everybody in life takes a few seconds to think about them self, where they see them self in the future. This can be quite difficult if you have no idea what you want to do.
Let me first state that this is a very sensitive area and everybody needs to pay attention because as we all know time wasted is never recovered. You need to choose wisely to avoid making a big mistake or making a wrong turn that might be quite difficult to recover in the near future.choosing the right career will require you to follow some quite east steps as explained below…
Self Assessment
This is where most of the people go wrong.They choose a career in reference to their Idols or Role models hoping one day to become like them…WRONG!. To effectively choose a career you must first learn about your self. Your likes (what you like doing) your interests (what interests you most?) your soft skills, aptitude, and most important what is your personality type? eg. You cant choose to be a nurse when the very entry to an hospital makes you vomit!
Gather a list of your traits, then generate a list of occupations that are fit for you based on the list. you can also work with a career counselor or a career development professional who can help you with the process.
Make a list of occupations and Explore them
From your self assessment stage make a list of occupations you would wish to pursue. They may be careers you know abit about and would wish to explore them further to nail what they exactly entail. From your fine list gather information about the choices you have eg; the current market status of the career, possible future trends of the carer, future market status etc…ie how marketable you will be plus what it takes to complete the career. what it takes may be some careers might require good students of mathematics at some stage while you are poor i maths. This will limit you from starting something and end up dropping in the middle resulting to waste of time and money. Trust me this is one case that happens to many people out there just because they skipped this step.
At this point you should have narrowed to like two or three options after considering all factors including education, training and licensing, Time ..etc
Conduct informational Interview & make and make your career choice
After the above stage you will be left with a few occupations on your list. You should now do an in depth research. An excellent way to do this will be by interviewing people who have first knowledge about the choice on your list and also by checking your career network eg social media like linked In.
After that you should good to go. Pick a career that you think will bring you the most satisfaction and most importantly one that can give you the flexibility to diversify or change your career since you might decide to change your career one day.
Identify your career Long Term & Short Term goals
Its just obvious that without clearly stated career goals your achievements will narrow down to nothing but dreams. Your long term goals will be basically what you wish to achieve in the next three to five years while your short term goals should be something you wish to achieve in the next six to one year.
Write a career action Plan.
Another very important document you need to come up with is a career Action plan. This is basically a document that lays out all the steps that will help you reach your primary goal in your chosen career. This should include your long term career goals and your short term career goals and the steps you should take to achieve them. Don’t forget that in life you will never traverse a smooth road, in your action plan, include anticipated barriers to achieving your goals and suggest ways to overcome them.
Learn how to write your fist cover letter.
Types of interview questions to expect on your first interview.
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