NEW CAREER DIMENSIONS FOR THIS

MILLENNIUM – CAREERS IN TRANSITION

What Career Next!
Ca r eer Change and Pl acement Specia li sts

Flexibility, strength and endurance. These are the three significant measures of fitness
used by experts in the sporting world.

The same can be identified for your career. Let’s see how.

Today, flexible careers are especially important. Last night I heard the story from a friend
of mine that captures this point quite dramatically. He told me of a friend of his who
started his career as a graduate with McKinsey Company, the renowned consulting firm.
He was based in their Jakarta office. Working for such a company means willingness to
accept many different challenging assignments. Even if those assignments do not relate
technically to your original degree.

So he was appointed two years later to head of a project looking after the e-commerce
segment of McKinsey consulting in this region. A significant position in a growing
market in this region.

Two years later he has accepted a position as Relationship Manager of a major regional
bank. In five years he will have held three different career lines and each change has been
an upward move. His story reflects the importance of flexibility – an openness, an
eagerness to try new fields which may suit your talents best.

Quite often your choice of degree is made by your family or even your marks. It may not
reflect your underlying talents at all. So consider where your talents lie, be willing to try
new lines until you find where you fit best. This can be part of your rationale to develop
career flexibility. Once you have acquired this flexibility you must seek to maintain it.

Regular exercise of your career through trying different activities that build other skill
sets, such as joining the Parent – teacher associations of your children’s School (to
develop your interpersonal and organisational skills) can be used to maintain your career
and skills flexibility.

Career strength is reflected in a story that comes from one of my personal mentors.
Wendy is a careers consultant in the USA. She has been a career coach and counselor for
over twenty years.

She shows how devotion to one career does not mean a lack of flexibility nor is this an
undesirable choice either. She has done so many different activities within this field that
she has accumulated significant depth of experience and understanding about the
principles of career management.

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She has recently established a web-based careers institute where others in the career
management profession such as myself can access professional development, coaching
and mentoring and many other services from her and her colleagues.

Strength comes from that depth of experience combined with talent to be able to renew
yourself in your chosen field, adapting to new technology and harnessing it to your best
professional interests. Strength training in your career means doing routine investigations
of the newest trends in your field and bringing an experienced evaluation of these new
trends to your own professional practice. Adapting and redefining your professional
practice to new standards and in new ways reflects your career strength.

Last but not least is endurance. In your career management this can mean several
different strategies. First, endurance suggests that your career is a lasting one. To achieve
this you must be able to constantly renew yourself. Attend conferences in your field, keep
in contact with key groups: your colleagues inside and outside your own company, your
customers - everyone has them and especially the innovators in your field.

Another way to gain career endurance is to share your knowledge with others, through
this method you can check whether you are still in touch. You can get valuable feedback
and renew your knowledge in the context of others of lesser experience than yourself.
Recall that there is no better way to learn than to teach.

Try to present papers at conferences, run workshops or seminars, write articles for
journals in your field, or even do some research into an issue of interest. Some of my
friends present papers annually at a conference to ensure that they remain relevant to their
field and stay in touch with their peers.

Networking – and constantly contributing to the body of knowledge available to others is

a sure fire way to achieve career endurance.

Another aspect of endurance is keeping yourself interested in your field. After working in
one field for so long perhaps you can become jaded. To avoid this you must seek new
challenges, must use your flexibility and strength as we discussed earlier and maintain a
proper life balance between career and family life, recreation, and spirituality. All of these
are vital for stress management and renewal. Essential ingredients in any strategy for
career endurance.

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In closing, we have covered generic approaches to measuring your career fitness. We
have looked at career flexibility, strength and endurance. It is also important to know
your values in life, learn to be happy at what you do and do what makes you happy, this
way you can live life to the fullest and achieve career success no matter what career line
you choose.

John M. Read
Certified International Job & Career Transition Coach
Managing Consultant
What Career Next!
Registered in Singapore
career@magix.com.sg
Tel: 354 3551