Career Module

Building Your Career

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 Building Your Career

A career is a sequence of work

positions held by a person during
his or her lifetime.

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 Career development programs used to be designed
to help employees advance their work lives within a
specific organization by providing information,
assessment, and training needed to help them realize
their career goals.
 Career development was also a way for organizations
to attract and retain highly talented people.

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 These days, downsizing, restructuring, and other
organizational adjustments have led to one significant
conclusion about career development:

YOU—”not the organization”—

will be responsible for designing,
guiding, and developing your own
career.

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Career Development Today

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 This idea of increased personal responsibility for one’s
career has been described as a boundaryless
career .
 The challenge is that few hard-and-fast rules are
available to guide you.

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 The optimum career choice offers you the best
match between what you want out of life and your
interests, your abilities and personality, and market
opportunities.

Good career choices should result in a series of

jobs that give you an opportunity to be a good
performer, make you want to maintain your commitment
to your career, lead to highly satisfying work, and give
you the proper balance between work and personal life.

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How Can I Have a Successful
Career?
 Investing in your education
and training is one of the best
investments you’ll make in
your lifetime.

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 1. Assessing your personal strengths
and weaknesses

 is a key to your success.

Ask yourself,
---“Where do my natural talents lie?
---What can I do that gives me a competitive advantage over
others?
---Am I particularly good with numbers? Or Have strong people
skills?
---Good with my hands? Write better than most people?”
Play to your strengths.

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 2.Identify Market opportunities

 Identify tomorrow’s job opportunities.

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 3.managing your own career
 Take responsibility for managing your own career by
thinking of it as your business and you’re its CEO. You
have to monitor market forces, head off competitors,
and be ready to quickly take advantage of opportunities
when they surface.

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 4. Develop your interpersonal skills
 especially the ability to communicate, which tops the list
of almost every employer’s “must have” skills. Whether
it’s getting a new job or earning a promotion, strong
interpersonal skills give you a competitive edge.

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 Take Action

 Work harder and smarter.

 Stay up to date.
 Make learning a lifetime commitment.
 Keep networking.
 Increase your visibility.
 Seek a mentor.

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 Practice Make Perfect
 Super-high achievers aren’t fundamentally different from
the rest of us—they just work harder and smarter.
 If you want to excel in any field, you have to consistently
engage in repeated activity specifically designed to
improve performance beyond your current comfort and
ability level.

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 Stay up to date
 in today’s dynamic world because skills become obsolete
quickly. To keep your career on track, you need to make
learning a lifetime commitment . This can include
continually taking classes or reading books and journals
to ensure that your skills stay current.

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 Networking
 refers to creating and maintaining beneficial relationships
with others to accomplish your goals. It helps to have
friends in high places and contacts who can keep you
informed of changes that are going on in your
organization and industry.
 Go to conferences and stay connected to former college
friends and alumni. Get involved in community activities
and cultivate a broad set of relationships. In today’s
increasingly interconnected world, join online business
networking groups such as LinkedIn.

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 Increase your visibility
 through networking, writing articles in professional
journals, teaching classes or giving talks in your area of
expertise, attending conferences and professional
meetings, and making sure your accomplishments are
properly promoted.

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 Seek a mentor
 to enhance your mobility, increase your knowledge of
your organization’s inside workings, gain greater access
to senior executives, increase satisfaction, and increase
visibility.

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10.Leverage
Your Competitive
Advantage
 by focusing on skills that are
important to employers, skills
that are scarce, and areas
where you have limited
competition.

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 The world of employment rewards specialization. You
don’t have to be good at everything. You just need to be
good at something that others aren’t and that society
values. The secret to life success is identifying your
comparative advantage and then developing it.

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 11. Don’t be afraid to take risks
 especially when you’re young and you don’t have much
to lose. Going back to school, moving to a new state or
country, or quitting a job to start your own business can
be the decision that will set your life in a completely new
direction.

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 12. it’s OK to Change jobs
 may help you stay ahead in this fast-changing job
market. Employers no longer expect long-term loyalty. It
is increasingly likely that you’ll need to change employers
to keep your skills fresh, your income increasing, and
your job tasks interesting.

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 Opportunities, Preparation and Luck =
Success

Successful people are typically ambitious,

intelligent, hardworking, and also lucky.
 Success is a matter of matching up opportunities,
preparation, and luck. If you’re lucky, you will recognize
those opportunities, have made the proper preparations,
and then act on them.

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