Keep your career objectives alive

All organizations enforce different operating procedures to attain their targets. It is vital for them to also do some futuristic contemplation by standardizing staff outputs, skill upgrades, capacity building, aptitude management and relief scheduling.

Renowned companies, as part of their employee welfare efforts, make available all opportunities to individuals to acquire additional qualifications. Employees are persuaded and egged on to attend training capsules and advance in their careers. However, the point to be noted is that much of the accent and toil in this context has to originate from the employees themselves. This helps in better career planning; the career roadmap is better charted with an equally good policy to rely upon.

Strategic visualization is one unavoidable component of career planning efforts. You need to set career objectives for yourself. Such objectives have five parts; they are summarized in the word ‘PARTS’ itself as under:

·   Precise: When we say ‘precise’, an unmistakably enunciated responsibility is implied. People should be alert and all ears to the aspiration and need to reach a particular appointment or realize a stage of development. Though career objectives are liable to change with the passage of time, a plain and unambiguous convergence of thoughts on the general objective is inescapable.

·   Assessable: You need to have pre-described conditions with reference to which, you can keep an eye on your steps forward. In respect of most people, performance appraisals by superior authorities serve this purpose. If you have advanced significantly in your career, then there are career gurus who help in delineating various phases of advancement and weigh-up vis-à-vis established aims.

·   Realizable: The objectives that you set for yourself should not defy pragmatism and logic; they should be sensibly attainable with distinctly labeled phases of advancement. At each stage of advancement, objectives and goals can be set. If an objective is impractical or unworkable, your inspiration level dipping down cannot be discounted. Without serving much purpose, out-of-reach targets also induce feelings of helplessness and failure. On the other hand, important targets are difficult and take long time for attainment.

·   Time: It is very vital to spell out deadlines and time limits or else career objectives will never get to be greeted. No career plots are successful in the absence of properly enunciated and definite and cut-off dates and time. In addition, feelings of perseverance, resolve and tenacity are generated and made certain of persistence by cogent and thought through plans.

·   Significance: All career objectives should have an uncomplicated and comprehensible perspective; they should be pertinent to existing circumstances and roadmap proposed to be followed.  In other words, they should be in conformity with a premeditated action-plan. It should be noted that a germane objective offers unmistakable guidance, puts you on the correct course and lets you remain concentrated on your work and career.

Good career advancement generally revolves around a well-organized, well-ordered and efficient career plan. And your aim in having a career plan should be to achieve the overall career objective. Career plans should not be rigid; on the contrary they should be adaptable and supple enough to incorporate skill upgrading imperatives, learning and development efforts and midway work assignments. With these comes the requirement to create time and generate self-motivation to move forward.

What you need to do is a ‘competence and void evaluation’. It will help you discern your weak-points that can be improved upon. Career advancement thus ought to be the justifiable and worthy of end-result of all change-for-the better attempts.

You should appreciate the immense feelings of accomplishment and realization that you would get if you attain your accomplishments; going beyond them would cause unsurpassable pleasure. As you move forward in your career and up in your organization, your involvement and interests increase as also your duties and liabilities. You can be rewarded with greater monetary remunerations and promotions. At senior levels, additional expert credit can be secured through organizations seeking to pick up people with specific expertise and qualifications.

Career objectives can and should never be decided all by themselves. An unlocked and unbolted discussion should be held followed by regular appraisals to make certain that the ‘PARTS’ are always intact. They should be reduced to writing, elucidated and without a doubt be in consonance with any career plan.

            There is no harm in seeking the advice from your immediate boss or any other person, including professional counselors. You will thus have access to varying standpoints and be able to remedy your mistakes, if at all they took place. Needless to say, career counselors and your managers have wherewithal and time-honoured procedures that will assist you in formulating your career objectives and identifying career plans that are practical.

            Determining career objectives is not sufficient. Putting them across to your managers is very important for you to planning advancement activities; it is possible that in the process you may hit upon an excellent career path. Communicating your career objectives to organizations that you aspiring to join, is equally significant as the same is indicative of your aspirations, motivation and concentration. It conveys to the other party in no ambiguous terms what you intend chasing besides also expressing a declaration of definite purpose. During an interview process, you will definitely stand in good stead. It is because of this fact that objectives are invariably enumerated in a resume.

            Career objectives are key agents to describe a career path, a visualization and inspiration for achieving something stupendous. Good objectives are likely to be pursued better if they have all the ‘PARTS’ – particular, assessable, realizable, time and significance. They are quite likely to develop, grow, advance, progress and change as time passes, but they should always comprise a broad and expansive career plan.