This is the time of the year when students studying in the final year of their graduate or post graduate degree courses would be making career choices on what they would be doing post college...To take up a job after graduation, to pursue higher education, to follow their dreams, to take up something unconventional. However today the young generation at this critical point in their career are faced with abundance of choices. When choices are many decision making becomes difficult, rather stressful and several interference's come into play.
These include Peer pressure, popular choices of the day (remember the engineering and medicine craze of the 1980's and 1990's) , family pressures all play a part of being among the various interference's. In such situations how does one bring back focus on their career choices. A simple way is to ensure you are clued in to 4P's. A simple yet powerful way to ensure that you are in synch with reality and make a more informed choice. A brief discussion on the 4 P framework for effective career choice making is elaborated here.
The first P is Purpose. Sounds simple but you first need to have a clear purpose if you don't want to get swayed by the happenings around you else, the slightest winds of disruption around you will distract you. Most young college graduates think their purpose is clear but not more than 10% of them have actually written down their purpose. Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? Writing down your purpose increases the chances manifold that you will achieve it or move in the direction to achieve it. Writing down your purpose brings focus into your mind. This is something you should take a few solitary moments to pen down. Discuss it, if you need, with a close confidant - a friend, a family member. State what you want to achieve and by when. Write it down in a place where you can read it as often as once a day. The mind has a beautiful way of rewiring itself when you are focused on your objective or purpose. (Read my Blog on Attention & Focus). One thing that most students who are graduating worry about is what others will think of their choice. It does not matter. Your choice is something that is very important for you and if you don't make your choice to do what you want then you will only be living other's choices. Your's or Others? The Choice Is Your's.
Once you have your Purpose, you need to drive it to action. This leads us to the second P which is Plan. Plan helps give wings to your dreams. You have to make deliberate attempts to make things happen and only a plan can take you there. You need to understand your strengths, your values and how they align with your purpose. Do you have what it takes to give wings to your dreams? If not - Go Get It !! It is never too late when you are making a choice for your life's dream. A career is not a short term venture but something that where you can end up spending 3 to 4 decades of your life in a field of your choosing. This can be the company you start your career with, the industry in which you want to work or even the field of profession you want to choose. A plan needs to have milestones. Break your journey to the destination into manageable bits. For e.g. if you want to get into a career on animation and gaming it is not just enough to do a few courses. Talk to a few experts who are already in the field of animation and design. Spend a few hours talking to them, understanding what stumbling blocks they faced in their career and how did they overcome this. Work on areas where you have assessed gaps vis a vis making entry into the career you are focusing on. You also need to understand what would be the best place to start your career. Look for organizations that provide fertile learning ground and good training for early career starters. Sometimes you need to trade this off with a few thousand rupees of salary that you may other wise get but with few training opportunities. Finally just like you put purpose on paper you should try to do the same with your plan.
The third P is very critical and most college graduates don't think about this till it is too late in the day. Position... It is like your brand promise. What is that makes you different from others who are competing with you. Chose something that is your strength. Something which you can talk about as your USP. Marry this P to the previous one if you want a job with a specific industry or have narrowed down to a particular choice of organization. How will you position your key strengths during the selection process. Things like Good communication skills, hard worker and attention to detail are all given today. You need to show how you are ahead of the learning curve, what unique skill, capability or talent you have that is hard to come by. This will help you stand out in a crowd. You need to start working on this P early on in your college degree course. Colleges where Training & Placement Departments drive this as a focus area to work on for their graduating classes will be ahead of the curve when it comes to fruitful placements of their graduating classes.
Perseverance...the final piece of the 4P framework. One needs to have a drive for perseverance in order to sustain the focus or career interest area. Perseverance helps to galvanize action, overcome stumbling blocks, expand your horizon and achieve excellence. When it is combined with performance it can create a transformation for individuals. Remember the budding guitarist who strummed hours on end and became part of the rock band... or the avid writer at school who turned into a budding author or journalist.... or the accounting wizard who went on to become a seasoned Chartered Accountant. All these examples can be found in real life. What we are talking here is the never say die attitude that you carry with you and which will help aspirants sustain the quest for what they are looking in their careers.
While it is important for individual students and graduates who are making career choices to consider these 4P's and strive towards using this simple framework to make a informed and aware choice, it is also in the interest of the educational institutes to set this focus as part of their mentoring the final year students. Placement Counselors and Training Officers of colleges can subtly encourage students to think on these lines. The earlier you make the start in college better are the chances that students don't get into last minute confusion and end up enjoying the careers they strive for.
These include Peer pressure, popular choices of the day (remember the engineering and medicine craze of the 1980's and 1990's) , family pressures all play a part of being among the various interference's. In such situations how does one bring back focus on their career choices. A simple way is to ensure you are clued in to 4P's. A simple yet powerful way to ensure that you are in synch with reality and make a more informed choice. A brief discussion on the 4 P framework for effective career choice making is elaborated here.
The first P is Purpose. Sounds simple but you first need to have a clear purpose if you don't want to get swayed by the happenings around you else, the slightest winds of disruption around you will distract you. Most young college graduates think their purpose is clear but not more than 10% of them have actually written down their purpose. Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? Writing down your purpose increases the chances manifold that you will achieve it or move in the direction to achieve it. Writing down your purpose brings focus into your mind. This is something you should take a few solitary moments to pen down. Discuss it, if you need, with a close confidant - a friend, a family member. State what you want to achieve and by when. Write it down in a place where you can read it as often as once a day. The mind has a beautiful way of rewiring itself when you are focused on your objective or purpose. (Read my Blog on Attention & Focus). One thing that most students who are graduating worry about is what others will think of their choice. It does not matter. Your choice is something that is very important for you and if you don't make your choice to do what you want then you will only be living other's choices. Your's or Others? The Choice Is Your's.
Once you have your Purpose, you need to drive it to action. This leads us to the second P which is Plan. Plan helps give wings to your dreams. You have to make deliberate attempts to make things happen and only a plan can take you there. You need to understand your strengths, your values and how they align with your purpose. Do you have what it takes to give wings to your dreams? If not - Go Get It !! It is never too late when you are making a choice for your life's dream. A career is not a short term venture but something that where you can end up spending 3 to 4 decades of your life in a field of your choosing. This can be the company you start your career with, the industry in which you want to work or even the field of profession you want to choose. A plan needs to have milestones. Break your journey to the destination into manageable bits. For e.g. if you want to get into a career on animation and gaming it is not just enough to do a few courses. Talk to a few experts who are already in the field of animation and design. Spend a few hours talking to them, understanding what stumbling blocks they faced in their career and how did they overcome this. Work on areas where you have assessed gaps vis a vis making entry into the career you are focusing on. You also need to understand what would be the best place to start your career. Look for organizations that provide fertile learning ground and good training for early career starters. Sometimes you need to trade this off with a few thousand rupees of salary that you may other wise get but with few training opportunities. Finally just like you put purpose on paper you should try to do the same with your plan.
The third P is very critical and most college graduates don't think about this till it is too late in the day. Position... It is like your brand promise. What is that makes you different from others who are competing with you. Chose something that is your strength. Something which you can talk about as your USP. Marry this P to the previous one if you want a job with a specific industry or have narrowed down to a particular choice of organization. How will you position your key strengths during the selection process. Things like Good communication skills, hard worker and attention to detail are all given today. You need to show how you are ahead of the learning curve, what unique skill, capability or talent you have that is hard to come by. This will help you stand out in a crowd. You need to start working on this P early on in your college degree course. Colleges where Training & Placement Departments drive this as a focus area to work on for their graduating classes will be ahead of the curve when it comes to fruitful placements of their graduating classes.
Perseverance...the final piece of the 4P framework. One needs to have a drive for perseverance in order to sustain the focus or career interest area. Perseverance helps to galvanize action, overcome stumbling blocks, expand your horizon and achieve excellence. When it is combined with performance it can create a transformation for individuals. Remember the budding guitarist who strummed hours on end and became part of the rock band... or the avid writer at school who turned into a budding author or journalist.... or the accounting wizard who went on to become a seasoned Chartered Accountant. All these examples can be found in real life. What we are talking here is the never say die attitude that you carry with you and which will help aspirants sustain the quest for what they are looking in their careers.
While it is important for individual students and graduates who are making career choices to consider these 4P's and strive towards using this simple framework to make a informed and aware choice, it is also in the interest of the educational institutes to set this focus as part of their mentoring the final year students. Placement Counselors and Training Officers of colleges can subtly encourage students to think on these lines. The earlier you make the start in college better are the chances that students don't get into last minute confusion and end up enjoying the careers they strive for.
No comments:
Post a Comment