Self-evaluation is indispensable for career planning

The biggest goof-up that men and women make in their line-ups to careers is to set out without any aim as students or take up low-key jobs with no idea of the course that they are moving on. Evidently, they lack a sense of direction and have no objectives set to be attained.  

Aimless that they may be, people linger and pass time till possibly when it is too late. Graduation over, the gravity of the situation is realized. It is then that a plunge is taken into a career. Any opportunity that comes their way is grabbed in. This is wrong in entirety because a job hunt and that too, a well-paying one should not be undertaken as a late reflection. Similar ought to be the case for identifying chances for progression. On the contrary, both job opportunity and job search should be a well-planned effort, evolved over months and years.

 Practice makes a man perfect. Therefore, one should go in for preparation, more preparation and additional preparation. Can an athlete ever do well if he does not practice? It is futile imagining that a person going on the tracks for a hundred metre shuttle without having practiced even once! He would never be able to estimate the effort required to be exerted. Similar is the case in respect of anybody wanting to step out to do something in life.

Any step that has a ramification needs to be taken with due caution, particularly when one's future is involved. It could well be that a number of giant strides are involved; and if that be so, it is essential that the number of smaller steps needed to reach the endpoint be envisaged. In other words, the end result and the methodology to attain it need to be established.

The above procedure, per force has to be very meticulous and should incorporate various impediments likely to be encountered - problems and difficulties, hurdles and complications, confrontations and disputes, etc. alike. Whatever is covered by a single small step is to be viewed as a short-term goal, which takes a person nearer to satisfying the giant stride, that are nothing but long-term goals. The three steps for carrying out self-assessment are:

· Determining where you want to be: It is sensible to deliberate upon various appointments one has been in along with the main subject pursued in college. Two issues then call for introspection. The first is to find out if one is satisfied wherever he is and the second is to discern where precisely one wants to be in the ensuing five to six years. There is no embarrassment or humiliation involved if one is unable to respond with certainty. A number of web sites offer extensive information to include vacancies that are in consonance with various career fields; they should be made use of to identify any agreeable one.

· Defining work and career objectives: Having discovered a job vacancy that is to one's liking, job and career goals that one thought of while in the final year of college or around the time when search for a job was launched should be jotted down. While job goals relate to one's current appointment, career goals pertain to the larger career mosaic. Examples of career goals are, amongst others, plans to change career in the immediate future and aspiring for a fat remuneration package. After listing out these goals, a couple of positions should be identified - some that one would like to bag today and some that are being aspired for in the next few years.

· Drafting a fresh resume: The final step is to incorporate changes in one's resume. To be able to do so, one needs to prepare and organize things. What are required to be put together are lately acquired qualifications, all testimonials and certificates and appropriate references. All these should be integrated appropriately in the resume, in consonance with various career chances and prospects together with goals and objectives that were identified earlier. If not satisfied, groundwork should be done to seek admission in a training institute, get to serve on working groups and boards or modify the resume to include the foregoing, partly or in entirety.

Self-evaluation over, what should be done next? Career magazines should be perused and internet sites browsed to identify appointments that are of interest and inspire together with their qualitative requirements. Information related to exceptionally good recommendations and sundry barriers that would have to be dovetailed or overcome respectively. It is important to accord priorities for their completion. Probable dates of completion should also be set for them. The aim of the entire exercise is to maintain individual gusto. One should be on the move, literally and figuratively. If a course is plotted and the future steered on it by executing a self-assessment, eventually everything that one seeks in a career will be accomplished.

It should be not be forgotten that career-related sentiments and views can be converted into tangible certainties by typifying career motivations. Remember that the first step that a man takes in his life is plain reflection and every success that comes his way is a result of chasing a dream. So what stops you from moving ahead and making a plan for yourself?