Foundation of a Successful Career: Career Planning

It is very important to figure out what exactly you need in life and how to turn that into a reality. A number of people seem to be extremely successful without putting in a lot of effort. These are the people who have planned their careers carefully and have taken the right decisions at the right time. Hence, career planning is very important to attain both your short term and long term goals. Given below are some important steps involved in career planning:

Self assessment

Be completely honest with yourself and assess your skills and the things that you can do best. Remember that the most important thing is to be sure about yourself and about the things you like to do. Devising a career in the line of your hobby is likely to give you more success as compared to others.

Job Market

Next, evaluate the job market and competition to ascertain how difficult it will be to enter into the career field of your choice and what are your chances of success? It is important to realize that a widely popular career path would have higher competition as compared to a relatively new field.

Plan your strategy

Plan in detail about the steps you need to undertake to be successful in the field of your choice. Consider the education or the training required and also your financial viability to afford these courses. It is important to plan all the minute details to ensure success in the long run.

Take help

Career planning is best accomplished if you take professional help. A career counselor can guide you in the right direction but you have to make the final decision yourself.

Convert your hobby into a career

The smartest people are those who convert their hobby into a full fledged career. This ensures that they like what they do and are hence able to do well in their careers.

One of the major reasons about the lack of career awareness in teenagers is the flaw in our education systems. Even the most acclaimed schools do not offer career education and career counseling at an early stage in school. High school students are completely directionless and believe that they are too young to think about something like career planning.

It is important to understand the benefits of prior planning to avoid any pitfalls in the career graph. Get the best possible education and training as it is the first step towards success. Spend time learning about yourself and available career options prior to making the final decision.

Courtesy ArticleBase

Right Talent Hunt

CareerInfoline is starting a 10 puzzles contest from 5^th Sep,2011 till Diwali (10 puzzles in 7 weeks), which will be followed by a mock placement test from Diwali till Christmas(2 months). The contest will be called SureFooted.

The winners of this contest will be getting an attractive prize (Gift vouchers/ free access to technical workshops and other freebies) and chance to interact with 5 industry professionals from different companies, along with placement assistance from CareerInfoline. There will be prizes for winners with all correct puzzles (10/10) , (8/10), (6/10) and (5/10), winner with first 3 correct answers, first 5 and first 7. Apart from this there will be weekly lucky draws.

You have to post the answers on CareerInfoline Facebook page in a particular format: Click here.

Format: You have to write registered username: Register here for free.

Username: College name: Passout Batch: Answer

To get updates about event subscribe at Careerinfoline blog and join CareerInfoline on Facebook. For any query send an email to info@careerinfoline.com.

* If you post answer on Facebook before your college-mates then you get extra bonus points, for every post posted after yours by your college-mates, so try to get maximum participation from your college. For more information on contest, visit regularly on CareerInfoline Facebook page, contest details will be posted from time to time. Stay tuned for bonus point winners.Lucky winners must have given right answers. To be eligible for any contest prize you should have atleast 5 bonus points.

Are You Really Serious About Achieving Your Goals?

If so, here are two simple steps that I share with audiences as a university speaker that really work. And this works not only for me but for hundreds of thousands of people who use slight variations of this system.

Step 1: Make ‘Em Top-of-Mind

To be successful it is crucial that I keep all my goals "totally top of mind". In order to accomplish this I know that I will need to focus and bend each and every one of my 300 billion or so neuron brain cells to this task.

First, I printout a list of all my weekly goals and stick them on the wall right over my desk where I cannot help but look at them each and every day. And the goals look back at me!

Remember, this isn't a to-do list. It's a list of the most important outcomes or goal achievements that I expect to have accomplished by a given day every week. On the left side I write my primary goals for the week (maximum of 3), and on the right side I list my secondary goals (this week I have 8 of those).

Step 2: Find an Accountability Buddy

Another tool that can be amazingly powerful in goal achievement is to have someone who will hold you accountable to achieving your weekly goals. In my case, it is my brother and best friend, Adam.

Every Monday morning we meet to go over our goals. We both play supportive and positive-only re-enforcement roles in achieving our goals. He holds me totally accountable and I serve the same purpose with him. While we are supportive, we also freely dish out a little sass if the other did not follow through on what he said he would during the week. To be candid, we have found that we would much sooner disappoint ourselves than we would disappoint each other.

I setup my primary goals such that achieving even one of them is better than achieving all the secondary or sub-set goals combined. Whenever you achieve one of your weekly goals, just draw a line through it; give yourself a mental high-five and save it. Then at the end of the week, the paper now contains your accountability record for the week. You can see which goals you achieved and which you didn't, and then you can think about how you can improve next week.

Maybe you were overly ambitious. Maybe you got off track because of too many distractions. Analyze your week! Maybe you achieved most of your secondary goals but none of your primaries. Perhaps you even achieved all your goals and now you are ready to step up your efforts. Remember to rejoice in your victories; it will drive you to higher goal achievement.

Both Adam and I keep all of our weekly goal lists on our laptops and review them often as the list of goals is ever expanding and this becomes a great way for both of us to lay the ground for autobiographies (A long term 10 year goal of mine!).

I also like that whenever I see my goal sheet, I see all my goals for the week, and this reminds me of where I want to be by the weekend. I am also reminded of my commitment to Adam.

If you follow these two steps, you stand an excellent chance of achieving whatever it is you want in life. I can personally attest to the fact that I would not be a successful university speaker today if it weren't for this wonderfully simple system.

Courtesy Article Base

Leadership Lessons from the Titanic

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“Madam, God himself could not sink this ship.” –A steward on the Titanic

In a discussion about stubborn leaders, I thought about the story of the sinking of the Titanic. Through research, I came across an article by Phil Landesberg called, “Back to the Future – Titanic Lessons in Leadership” (2001).

Titanic’s arrival was a modern marvel. It was “a grand combination of modern technology and luxury built to tame the capriciousness of nature” (Landesberg, 2001, p. 53). With the latest technological and design ingenuity, along with its massive size (the largest moving object at the time), newspapers proclaimed it to be “unsinkable.”

But, the Harland & Wolff Shipyard (builder of the Titanic) and the White Star Line (operator of the Titanic) knew that there were some scenarios that could sink the ship. But, in order to attract customers, both the ship’s maker and its operator went along with the marketing of the Titanic’s unsinkability.

Chosen to navigate the Titanic was a charismatic captain named Captain E. J. Smith, nicknamed “the millionaire’s captain.” Part of his job was to “cater to the expectations of wealthy and influential passengers” (Landesberg, 2001, p. 54).

For the most part, (from the time it set sail on April 10, 1912 to about an hour prior to it colliding with an iceberg) the Titanic’s voyage was pleasant, nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe that was the reason for Captain Smith’s cancellation of a lifeboat drill planned for Sunday April 14th.

Ironically, what made for a romantic setting—calm seas and a moonless night—signaled potential dangers as those conditions made spotting icebergs difficult. However, rather than staying to pilot the ship, Captain Smith instead went to a dinner hosted in his honor. He gave instructions to keep the Titanic on course and maintain speed unless visibility became a factor.

“Less than an hour before Titanic was to collide with an iceberg, Californian’s wireless operator, Cyril Evans, tried to pass along a message from her captain warning that Californian was surrounded by ice and stopped. On board Titanic, Phillips (one of two Titanic wireless operators working for Marconi Company onboard to relay commercial messages) was busily sending commercial messages, and replied, ‘Shut up, shut up, I’m busy….’ Ten minutes before the collision, Evans, noting that Phillips was still busy with commercial messages, shut down his equipment and retired to his cabin” (Landesberg, 2001, p. 54).

Although a large iceberg was spotted by a lookout on the Titanic, its speed and proximity “meant that the efforts of the officer in charge to avoid a collision were doomed to failure. Titanic struck the iceberg on her starboard side, sustaining damage along a 300-foot section of her hull in a mere 10 seconds. Titanic’s design allowed her to take on water in two compartments and remain afloat, but more than four compartments were breached during the collision. Upon assessing the damage, Andrews (one of Titanic’s designer who was onboard) estimated that Titanic would sink in an hour or two” (Landesberg, 2001, p. 54-55).

In an atmosphere of confusion and chaos, women and children were loaded onto lifeboats (per Captain Smith’s order). Unfortunately, without an understanding of and experience with lifeboat procedures, “the lifeboats were only partially loaded before being lowered to the sea. Designed to carry up to 65 passengers, some left with only a dozen people on board. As the lifeboats rowed away from Titanic to avoid being sucked down when she sunk, hundreds of passengers were left screaming and thrashing about in freezing water” (Landesberg, 2001, p. 55).

By early morning on April 15th, only 705 people were still alive, while 1,517 died.

LEADERSHIP LESSONS


#1 Never Make Assumptions

Captain Smith and many other leaders affiliated to the Titanic assumed that it could never sink.

“I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that.” -Captain R. J. Smith, R.M.S. Titanic

#2 Watch for the Calm before the Storm

The quiet seas and a moonless sky made it hard to spot icebergs, making it deceiving that things were ok.

#3 Heed Warnings

There were attempts to warn the Titanic from another ship (the Californian’s Cyril Evans). But those messages were dismissed because Phillips (one of two Titanic wireless operators) was busy sending commercial messages.

#4 Stop Finding the Blame

“[I]f we look for culprits when something goes wrong, we’ll find them. However, holding individuals accountable for results can prevent learning how to improve performance or prevent a problem from recurring” (Landesberg, 2001, p. 56).

#5 Manage the System to Find a Solution

The Senate inquiry into the sinking of the Titanic revealed that Marconi wireless operators (like Jack Phillips who was onboard the Titanic to relay commercial messages) often would refuse “to communicate with wireless operators of ships (such as the Frankfurt) known to use competitor’s equipment. Frankfurt was the first ship to answer Titanic’s distress call and the operator went to consult his captain. When he returned, Phillips, on board Titanic, rudely refused to answer the question posed by Frankfurt’s captain, “What is the matter?” (Landesberg, 2001, p. 56).

The lack of cooperation and collaboration was evident in Landesberg’s (2001) account:

“While there seemed to be a ship relatively close by, the nearest ship responding to Titanic’s SOS distress signal was Carpathia, and she was more than four hours away” (p. 55).

“Leaders must look to cooperate (even while they compete) to improve the systems in which they operate, for the good of all…Had the aim of providing passenger safety been clear to everyone (i.e., Titanic’s officers and crew–including wireless operators and Californian’s officers and crew) there would have been far less confusion, more cooperation, and less loss of life on the evening of April 14, 1912.” (Landesberg, 2001, p. 56-57).