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Taking charge of your Career
3 August 2013
Singaporeans are a fortunate lot, on many counts. The free public transportation perk that will come into effect shortly must surely be an initiative that is peculiar to Singapore. When the idea was first mooted, a reporter asked me for my take, and I must confess that my reaction was one of dis-believe. No, it will never happen – how could this be possible? Our public transportation providers are businesses per se, with boards and shareholders to be accountable to – how could they even dare entertain the idea of free transportation, albeit for a certain duration of the working day. Actually, I was not wrong – except that I did not have the foresight to even think that the Government may be the one forking out the goodies – as they have done so many times before in the past.
On further reflection, it would be easy to understand why our Government is able to do this. Precisely because they have been prudent in taking good care of our Nation’s money, and can now introduce schemes such as this to benefit Singaporeans. The amount of money to be set aside for this scheme from our National Reserve is no small beer.
It is the same when it comes to our careers. If we plan and proactively and continuously take charge of our life – our career and financial health are integral parts of this – we will similarly be in a position to respond should challenges and adversities come upon us, and we need to draw on our "reserves".
When we are in a strong, and stable financial situation, the options that will open up for us – in terms of what we choose to do with our life and our career – will be far more compared to those that work to earn salaries to pay off their loans, mortgages and credit card bills, etc.
Here are some considerations when planning your career:
1) Begin with the end in mind. Take a review of your career – where have you been, where are you now, and where do you wish to go. One’s career direction may not always be clear, especially when you are still relatively fresh in your career journey. When you hit your early 30’s, you should ideally have some idea where your career is heading. There will always be exceptions – I stumbled upon my career direction when I was in my late 30’s, for instance. The guidance of a qualified and experienced career coach may be useful for some.
2) Take stock of your qualifications and set of competencies and skills. Do you have what will be required for your future career? Continued learning, skills acquisition, upgrading, re-skilling is a given in managing your career. Organizations will always have a budget for training and development of key talent. That is just one option – the other obvious one is to invest in your own learning and training. Cutting your own check to enhance your employability is always an investment of your future, not an expense.
3) Network, network, network. This point bears repeating. The entire world is connected by people. Being part of a global association of career management firms have given me the privilege of being connected to partners from all over the world. Start from home – build a network of contacts, friends, and acquaintances from both within and outside your profession. Joining professional and community-based organizations such as the Rotary Movement is one option. With social media literally available at your finger-tips, “No time“ can no longer be an excuse. Being able to call upon your network’s expertise, contacts, advice etc is a privilege only to those who invest in time and effort to build, and nurture their network.
4) Apply the 1/3-rule of career management. On an on-going basis, identify and slot the activities of your job into three buckets.
- Learning – activities that you can learn from performing them
- Stretching – activities that you know how to do, but need to do more to become more proficient
- Eyes-shut – those that you can do very well, or maybe even being an expert already
In the world of career management, there is such a thing called an ideal job – one where you have about an equal one-third of your job activities in each bucket. You will quickly realize that as you spend more time on your job, activities will drop down to the respective buckets below, and the day will come when you are bottom-heavy i.e you have a large percentage of your job activities in the “Eyes-shut” bucket. This is when you are going to be on a thread-mill, running but not going anywhere. This is when you have to explore lateral moves within your current organization, or outside. Failing to do so will see you remaining stagnant in your personal and career growth.
If you are already taking charge of your career, kudos to you – which means you would also have thought about a Plan B i.e. what to do after your corporate career is over. The fact is that there will always be a shelf life when we are in the corporate world. And when the expiry date is up, or if it is brought forward by our employer, we will have no choice but to move on to Plan B – and it is always better to know, and have a Plan B, than having to scrounge around and begin thinking about it then.
Free transportation now. Free lunch worth S$2 if you have it before 12 PM? Who is to say that it will not happen?
Paul Heng
Career Coach
NeXT Career Consulting Group, Asia
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