Seek Career Advice From Your Educators

“Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.” — Confucius

Choosing your career is a challenging process. If you understand and adopt the right tools and techniques you will be able to succeed in your career and provide meaning to your life. People spend most of their time in the workplace. So, they must not compromise with their careers for the sake of money or other aspects. They must strictly follow their passions to enjoy in the workplace and ensure work-life integration.

You are a Gem!

Find out what you want to be and how you want to be. Identify your passions and choose your career with 4As―attitude, aptitude, abilities, and awareness. Check your attitude toward the career. Identify whether you have the aptitude toward the career. Identify whether you have the abilities to pursue the career. Finally, have awareness about the career including potential, prospects, and problems. Here is a blueprint to build your career. Unlock your creativity. Identify the area where you are an expert to enjoy your career. Explore and experiment. Take risks. Do what you love to do. Follow your heart. Follow your dreams. Be an expert in networking with different domains to have a wider base professionally.

Your Educators are Gemmologists

Undertake authentic online personality tests. Find out your passions. Consult a career counselor. Ask your educators, friends, and family members who can help you discover your hidden talents and strengths. Educators are the ideal advisors because they are the gemmologists and know how to identify the gems. Research has shown that most Nobel Laureates ascribed their success to their educators. They received timely advice from their educators in their early life. They followed the advice, explored, experimented, failed, learned lessons, and invented new things. So, appreciate the importance of your educators who are gemmologists.

Build Your Career Capital

There is a huge demand for the right talent in the corporate world. Unfortunately, the corporate world is unable to identify the right talent to grow from good to great.  To get spotted with talent, you must know what is all about career capital. Career capital is the ability to build your career consistently to be marketable in the job market in the current global context.  The days of permanent employment are gone. These are the days of permanent employability to enhance your professional success.

Career capital is the true capital. It is a soft asset to employees paving the way for hard capital. Employees with career capital are constantly on the lookout for opportunities. They have strong business acumen and build a high internal locus of control. Additionally, they are in an advantageous position as employers cannot fire them. They believe in continuous learning and constant unlearning and relearning. They are confident in taking more risks to achieve great career success.

People may lose their financial capital whereas they will not lose their career capital as it goes with them throughout their lives. Some entrepreneurs lost their money but their knowledge brought them back on track and ensured their ultimate business success.

Presently millennials are highly ambitious and appreciate preferring a career to a job; and a career to money. They are willing to postpone their marriages and are ready to sacrifice their personal lives to build their career capital. They strongly believe that if their career capital is strong the rest of the things will fall into place.

Shortlist Your Employer

If you are meritorious and are equipped with employability skills, you can shortlist your employer. If you are equipped with hard and soft skills, you can shortlist your employer. If you acquire the right mindset, skillset, and toolset, you can shortlist your employer. If you are equipped with self-management skills, job-related skills, and transferable skills, you can shortlist your employer. Hence, shortlisting your employer is an easy task if you are equipped with adequate knowledge, skills, and abilities, and are employable and deployable in the corporate world.

Love Your Employability, not Your Employer

Some of the employees in private organizations love their employers to safeguard their employments. They flatter their employers and pass on the information of their colleagues to their employers to be in their good books. They think that it is a way of demonstrating their loyalty to their organizations.  In fact, what they must understand is that they must love their employability, not their employers.

Employers appreciate employees who are committed and dedicated. They don’t appreciate flatterers and informers. Of course, they need informers among the employees who can pass them with genuine information about other employees to safeguard their organizational interests. It is known as informal communication which often serves as feedback for the employers.

In the present context, employers are very serious and they respect the employees who deliver their goods properly. They appreciate the employees who add value to their organizations. The true employees work sincerely and deliver the goods as per the expectations of their employers.  It adds value to their resumes and enhances their employability. There is no permanent employment but only permanent employability. To ensure your permanent employability, you must regularly update your knowledge, skills, and abilities. You must learn, unlearn and relearn with the changing times and technologies. This approach enhances your employability. It leads to earning respect from your employer and safeguarding your employment as well. If there is any problem with your present employer due to organizational politics you will be in great demand elsewhere as you are already equipped with employability skills. Other employers are eagerly waiting to absorb you. Hence, love your employability, not your employer.

Most employees have hard skills which are also known as technical skills and domain competence. But they fail to express them properly due to the dearth of soft skills. Soft skills are all about how you convey your hard skills. They help you fast-track your career. Remember, you are hired because of your hard skills and fired due to a dearth of soft skills.

Explore Opportunities to Excel as an Entrepreneur

Currently, the world is shifting from internet technology to data technology. According to Gartner, big data is high-volume, velocity, and variety information assets that demand cost-effective, innovative forms of information processing for enhanced insight and decision making. There are innumerable opportunities in data technology. The millennials and centennials must shift their mindset accordingly and explore opportunities to excel as entrepreneurs.

Reinvent Your Career 

The tools and techniques that helped you come up to the present level may not help you scale to reach your next higher level. You must change your methods and style of approaches from time to time. Don’t get complacent with your achievements. The current world demands learning, unlearning, and relearning. You must reinvent from time to time to get updated and to excel in your life. To summarize, be careful while choosing your career and your spouse. If you choose your career carefully you enjoy during the working hours. If you choose your spouse carefully you enjoy yourself after working hours. So, don’t compromise with your career and spouse to ensure work-life integration and lead your life mindfully and meaningfully. To conclude, invest your precious life in the career you love and believe in.

Written by Professor M.S. Rao, Ph.D.