Glitches in career planning

Exercising a career choice is similar to undertaking a journey to a place that you have no idea about and without having any advance notice. You will surely spend time trying to find out about the new place and what you need to carry. In other words, you plan for your journey and then get coordinate your journey and other arrangements so that you are not inconvenienced. In a similar way, when you do career planning, you visualize glitches and prepare yourself to preclude them. When you set out searching for a job, there will be many hurdles and challenges; and you will have to be skillful enough to handle them. Your job search will have to be well-organized and for which, some astuteness will be necessitated on your part so that you emerge successful.

Career planning is like making a detailed portrait of your future. The process per se will be extremely grueling and demanding. You will encounter challenges related to remaining:

• Resolute in your plan: To have a line of action and adhere to it implies planning for the future in a proactive manner. This is the most rudimentary strategy of any job search and calls for a proactive approach. As is well-known, most good openings are hidden jobs and are obtained through your network. Your line of action should be to obtain leads from others, meet people and take your leads to a logical conclusion. To make your line of action work, you will have to systematize your time well, sift through information from various sources, find out details of different openings and widen your contact base.
• Motivated & determined: This challenge pertains to acquiring information about your own self; it is nothing but a self-evaluation. Your career search is all about getting into a pursuit that will provide you delight and contentment. You can be contented if you put to use your skills and knowhow with pleasure. Contentment is invariably an outcome of success; this proves the point that if you indulge in a work that is pleasurable, you are more likely to be successful. And remaining sharply focussed all along is what will pay you rich dividends. Given the numerous distractions that exist, to remain single-minded and motivated is a challenge by itself. 
• Watchful & following things: You will have to display a high degree of comprehension with regard to things happening around you, particularly those that have the potential of influencing your career choices. If you remain cognizant and responsive to various developments, you will be able to evaluate them for the impact they can have on your career. You will be able to infer upon opportunities that can be thrown open for you and organizational growth prospects. Remember that even a trivial happening can trigger a major activity in your career and hence the need to remain aware needs no emphasis. 
• Methodical & well-organized: During the course of your job search, you will have several documents and papers for use. They could be copies of your resume; contact details of people; printouts of company profiles and emails; and applications sent by you. In addition, you will have to maintain a ‘things-to-do’ list that will include details of liaison visits to be undertaken and appointments to be kept. You will have to keep all such information safe and readily available; and which is the essence of remaining well-organized and systematic.
• In good books of others: You should be able to portray an excellent picture about yourself – when you present yourself in person, when you submit a document in paper and email forms or when you talk over the telephone. The basics pertain to your CV – how dexterously you draft it. You also need to create an impact during an interview and is something that is a monumental challenge by itself. Your routine conduct also matters in creating a favourable impression. Self-assessment thus is very important in being able to create the desired impact because based on your findings about yourself, you plan to conduct yourself appropriately.        

The above challenges necessitate being well-aware of different factors that affect your career. In the light of the foregoing, you need to focus your attention on the prevailing job market so that you are cognizant of all allied issues. You efforts should be directed to discovering the real you, identifying what you are cut out for and be aware of your inherent talents. It is essential that each and every bit of information that you collect is recorded in a methodical way in order to formulate a correct strategy to get into a job in harmony with whatever you researched.

If you think that your career journey will be bump-free, you are sadly mistaken. You will have to be continuously adept at enlarging your self-consciousness, self-realization and self-knowledge. In addition, you will be required to absorb change in your lifestyle and disposition, rather than displaying hostility towards them; and at the same time boost your contact base. The foregoing will necessitate at being able to comprehend what your reactions to difficult situations will be like. You will have to learn and re-learn newer methodologies and discarding obsolete ones. And most importantly, you should never ever think of going all by yourself; taking help from others is always recommended.