Have you planned something for your career? Nowadays due to high competition, concentrating only on academics will not work. Everyone knows that there is a huge gap between academics and the corporate world. Hence it is very important to bridge raised gap by doing some specialization in your field. Specialization can be anything like doing technical courses, building soft skills, preparing yourself for competitive examination, etc. For preparing a long term plan it is very important to stay motivated so that you can stick to it.
In general case, our aspiration goes on changes as we grew up. During childhood or teenage when someone asked us about our goal, we would set the bar high with an astronaut, scientist, doctor or other meaningful careers. But as we grow older, we tend to lose our enthusiasm and indulge ourselves with small goals, while only looking to justify our failed career.
Therefore it is very important to show some seriousness in order to achieve something in life. To check the degree of seriousness towards career, you need to check your involvement in the aspects mentioned below.
1. Is your purpose well defined?
- To achieve the long term goal, you required a long run motivation.
- If your purpose of life is well defined then there is no need for extra efforts to keep yourself motivated. Your ‘purpose’ will do it for you.
- Your purpose of life should be in such a way that your career-oriented activities should be aligned with your purpose.
- It’s not an easy task to define a purpose. You have to spend some time analyzing yourself. Doing a SWOT analysis will help you to find your purpose.
- This is a very primary step to build a strong career foundation. If you have not done yet then it may possible that your output will change at the end.
2. Did you ever research everything?
- This is the most common problem among freshers and undergraduates. They consider the things as it is while getting information on any topics from the third person.
- The thing you need to research is where you stand in comparison with the current requirement of the corporate world.
- Most of the students don’t have a habit of taking things seriously. And as long as they understand this, two to three years have passed.
- This kind of students needs to understand the industry culture. It’s not the college where you can start your assignment at the end time.
- So you have to research a lot. You should aware of thing like the requirement of the companies that are looking for a particular kind of candidates.
- Doing internship and industrial visit is the best way to understand the corporate culture.
3. Learn to say ‘NO’
- Successful people know how to say ‘no’ to things that aren’t aligned with their goals.
- You’ve defined the core values in your life, for friendships, relationships or work, and you make choices attached to them.
- We waste lots of time doing unwanted things. You have to clearly set flexible boundaries for everything in life.
- Due to well defined flexible boundaries, you will be able to judge your output more effectively.
- These small things show about the seriousness towards your career.
4. Did you align yourself with a mentor?
- Mentors have the experiences that you can learn and avoid the same mistakes that most of the beginners make.
- If you are serious in your career then at a particular point you will need a person with whom you can share your career path to avoid mistakes.
- Mentors are the best source of a professional network that every beginner looks for. Having a good professional network opens lots of opportunities in the future.
- Most of the freshers and undergraduates don’t give much importance to having a mentor. This is mainly because of their perception of not requirement.
- Know the importance of having a mentor.
5. Are you using social media just for the sake of entertainment?
- Nowadays social platforms are the great source for building a personal brand.
- Keep updating your social media profile.
- You should share relevant articles on social media. Maintain a mature online presence.
- Try to make professional connections. This will help you in developing a personal brand much more effectively.
- Follow other platforms which are similar to your idea or product. This will help you in getting the audience who follows those platforms. Associate yourself with other strong brands.