Climacteric facets of career management

Career management is a lifetime process that entails putting in and devoting your wherewithal to attain your career objectives. It is not just a singular event but a continuing process that is self-monitored and involves selecting and setting personal objectives and formulating strategies towards their achievement. With things changing at a rapid pace, career management is an inevitability of the present times.

While we may be aware of something about career management and its importance, what it exactly is and how it can be affected is something about which most people are ignorant about. As in financial management, in a career too, a methodical investment undertaken consistently generates good returns. While the approaches and manoeuvres are subject to change, career management actually centres on two prime resources that are used to oversee and deal with various facets of your career in your working life. These resources are:

· Incessant learning: With the advent of technology in all spheres of work, our daily routine and workplace schedule revolves around it like never before. The very process of operations and working methodology have been drastically transformed by computerisation and automation. And this process of alteration is an ongoing one and moving at a very rapid pace; it is likely to not double or treble, but   decuple in the next few decades. What will be the consequences and implications of such changes? Technological inventions and developments will for certain make the economy undulate very rapidly. The likelihood of a number of businesses being rendered antiquated and antediluvian cannot be discounted as also some being propelled into renown and publicity. The manner in which we become accustomed to these continuing modernisations and improvements will evidently be contingent on how we go about to update our current skills and knowhow. Therefore, it is essential that you keep the fire of learning always kindled in you. Remember that the entire world is like a laboratory to the inquiring mind and education consists mainly of what you unlearn. The very purpose of learning is advancement; and our minds can continue growing as we continue to live. You will thus be required to take necessary steps to keep altering your investments related to wherewithal, efforts and time so that you are not caught napping. In this context, the words of Henry Ford, “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young” are very relevant. Therefore, you have to strive to develop abilities to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge so that you can apply them to your work.

· Bonds & connections: The current economy is one of intelligence, knowledge, overhauls and good turns. In the light of the foregoing, the most crucial asset is your contacts. It is your bonds and linkages that you enjoy with your peers, clients, rivals that help you to do your daily tasks. In the future, your networking will be the very source of acquisition of information related to the progression of businesses. Your network will also comprise people outside the sphere of activity of your work and who would be related to your leisure pursuits, members of your family and the society as a whole. Your relationships on your professional and individual planes are bound to outrun particular organisations, arenas, industries and people. If that is going to be the actuality, the manner in which we interrelate, react and bond in all our relationships will have a tremendous effect on our present functioning and future prospects. It should not be forgotten that by staying aloof and in isolation, nothing significant can be achieved. In any case, it is networking alone that uncovers nearly three-quarters of all job opportunities. Considering the foregoing, the importance of staying bonded as also being aware of the efforts that go in to forge affable relationships needs no emphasis. And the silver lining is that all these skills can be developed.

Incessant learning and administration of people-to-people connections are the framework of a successful career management effort. In addition, the formulation of a career vision and career line of action are also necessary to steer knowledgeable career investment decisions and establish career objectives. The career vision, needless to state, should be all-encompassing with inbuilt attributes of flexibility; however, it should be adequately explicit to facilitate appropriate action. The career vision that we formulate should be in harmony with our exclusive personality and penchants so that available options are able to provide us opportunities to make useful contributions at work and resultantly give job contentment over an extended period of time. To that extent, one will have to shed rigidity and maintain competitive edge.

To have a successful career, you cannot invest your entire life in a single hope. You have to plan for it and then superintend it. You should not be plagued with qualms and hesitations because a mind that is troubled by doubt cannot focus towards success. Career management entails indulging in some advance worrying in the form of deliberations and planning in advance. But that worrying is in your interests.