Essence of career management

Career management is a process that is required to be undertaken throughout your career journey and calls for utmost devotion to realize your career objectives. It is a persistent and ongoing process wherein you monitor yourself and demands setting appropriate goals; and thereafter working out ways and means to attain them. In the present day where there is intense competition, career management is important than ever before and cannot be dispensed with.  

While we have some knowledge about career management and its significance, the implications it holds out on our career is surely not known to us. Similar to financial management, any systematic investment in one’s career results in reaping good benefits. The way we handle career management is always subject to change under different conditions and phases, it invariably focusses on two major issues that are utilized to facilitate your career advancement; these are:

• Incessant learning: Today, technology is the backbone of all work and workplaces, including what you engage in outside work. With automation and computerization at all workplaces, the working procedures being adopted stand drastically changed. And this process of alteration is going to continue at a very fast speed and the likelihood of the pace going up by two or three times in the next ten years or so cannot be discounted. Can you visualize the outcome and ramifications of such changes? Technological inventions and developments will for certain create ripples in the economy and that too at a very fast pace. Some organizations will go up in their reputation and some will experience a dwindling reputation. The way in which such changes will be acceptable to us will depend upon the manner in which we improve upon our knowledge and skills. Hence it is essential that everybody remains enthusiastic to learn as also equally flexible to unlearn. Its should be remembered that the purpose of all learning is to advance ahead in your career and therefore, it is essential that all investments with regard to resources, endeavours and time are judiciously subjected to alterations and modifications to preclude any surprise development. The crus of the matter is thus the need for a continual learning outlook in order to facilitate their useful application at work.
• Influences and contacts: The current economy is one of brainpower and flexibility. You may not realize it, but the most important asset that you ought to possess is your network and associations. The relationship that you enjoy with your colleagues and other stakeholders in your company will facilitate the discharge of your routine duties. In the future, your networking will be the very source of acquisition of information related to the progression of businesses and will include people outside the sphere of activity of your work as also those related to your hobbies and family. Your relationships on your professional and individual planes are bound to outrun particular organizations, arenas, industries and people. If that be so, the manner in which you interrelate, react and bond in all our relationships will have a tremendous effect on our present functioning and future prospects. You will not achieve anything worthwhile if you keep yourself in isolation. In the light of the foregoing, the importance of networking should not be underestimated; and the encouraging part is that the skills that go in to forge good networks can be acquired.

Continuous learning and networking are instruments of career advancement and hence should necessarily form part of all career management efforts. Additionally, a sound career vision and a strong initiative are inescapable to make judicious career decisions, particularly to formulate achievable career goals. The career vision should be all-inclusive and incorporate issues that are modifiable. It should be in consonance with your overall personality and inclinations so that you can act and work with ease, keeping organizational interests above everything else. It is only then that you will derive satisfaction from your work and enable maintenance of a competitive edge over others.

In order to be always in the lead, you cannot put your entire life in a single desire or wish. hope. You have to plan to maintain a leading position and then make certain that you supervise it. You should not unnecessarily worry because if you do so, you are likely to use your focus at work and in the process, suffer career failure. Any worrying that should be done ought to be done in advance in the form of premeditated contemplations and well-thought off considerations. And such worrying will stand you in good stead.