Developing your career

Last week, I talked about my Ironic Financial Crisis on a sad note. However, this time, let me talk about something else. We had this training just this week about Career Development and that is what I will talk about now.

Do you still remember your first day on the job?

I was very excited on the thought that I will be working. I would wake up early and go to the office on time. I was very attentive on the trainings and tried my best to understand them when in reality, I just couldn’t understand all of them. My brain becomes overload with all the information that the trainers are cramming into my head. I do write notes as much as I can so that my notebook would be of use. In short, on the first few days on the job, I was full of excitement and passion to learn.

The first few weeks were like that. I was an apprentice. I was a disciple. I was like a sponge who would suck in anything they say and just simply follow. Of course, it was still fun because you are learning something new everyday.

To give a little overview, based on what I’ve learned, this should be your career path…

1. For the first few months – Learn as much as you can. Pester your office mates with questions. Note down anything that you think is note worthy.
2. A few months to 1 year or so – Time to shine and do as much as you can staying independent.
3. approaching two years – Be at a fork road. Stay and continue or move on to another role/work or something.
4. Go back to step 1

Now we have the overview, let us give some light to these steps…

Learn as much as you can

Just like a mother teaching a baby, you would need to be taught on how to do things in your line of work. This is really important especially if you are exposed to something you have no prior experience with before nor even heard of it (based from experience). Your goal here is to learn the basics from your mentors and try to do it by yourself. Do not be shy to ask questions like hell. Everyone started from this stage of life so nobody is going to get mad at you for asking too much … unless you keep asking the same questions over and over again that just proves you never learn.

Before we can move on to the next phase, we need to make sure that we are equipped with enough knowledge to stand on our own. It may take months or even a year before you can do this but there’s no rush. We need to make sure we are ready before we can…

Do your work as best as you can

It is time to shine! Now that we feel we are capable of doing things on our own, try to do them with the best of your ability. Personally, there’s two things that are driving me to do something, my pride and the glory. I usually put my pride in things that I do. This is something I did and I want it to be high quality because, I want to be associated with high quality. So if I slack off, it would result in poor quality work and will also reflect to me.

Another thing, I want to be remembered for something that I did and when people see that something, they would say, “oh, this is great! who did this?”. As my name will be mentioned, it feeds my pride and my ego, my ears will clap! The glory I gain from doing something, the higher priority I give it on my list.

Anyway, going back… what I just wanted to say here is to try to do your best and shine in your office. Usually in your officework, you tend to do the same things others do so there is little to no difference. You need to be distinguished. You need to be branded as different (not in a silly way). In short, you need to grab the attention of your superiors through your work and not through your extra curricular stuff. We need this to achieve this so that we can move on to the next step.

Deciding your next career path

Now that you have gotten the attention of your superiors, it is time to evaluate yourself.

• Have you learned all you can from your line of work? or do you still need more time to become the legend in your work?
• Are you getting tired of doing your work? Either by over repetition or it doesn’t pose a challenge to you anymore.

Your answers to these questions will determine which path you will take, there are two paths actually…

• Stay where you are
• Move to another (does not mean to resign and look for a new job)

Just remember that whichever path you choose should be determined by you. Do not succumb to peer pressure or the “follow the crowd” mentality. You should be where you feel you will still grow and be happy at the same time.

Well good luck.. hmm in my case, I opted for the 2nd option and I’m now in Step 1 of my new role. ^_^