Take control of your career

A New Year has just begun and it's a new opportunity to make your dreams come true, that in many aspects, just depend on you!

I'm always surrounded by students... Delivering lectures in Universities, participating in talk shows and events, talking about career and the future of Job market. I feel energized by them and as an HR Leader, it is an amazing opportunity to learn from their experience and understand their expectations.

In these events, the same question always come up: "How do I get a job?". But in fact, the question should be "How do I get a meaningful job?".

We have many ways to find a job. However, when it comes to a meaningful job, it is not that easy. From my experience, what I have learned is that when your life purpose is aligned with your career, you have found or created a meaningful job.

This concept of meaningful job has been described in many and different ways. Clayton M. Christensen in his article, How will you measure your life, says about sense of purpose:

"If you are not guided by a clear sense of purpose, you are likely to fritter away your time and energy on obtaining short-term signs of achievement, not what's really important to you." (Christensen, 2010)

To take control of your career, you should establish your goals and set the direction (both can be changed along the way and it is totally fine). For this, you should take some steps:

1) Know yourself. Discover your core interests, what motivates you and what creates light in your life. Which are your skill set?

2)  Learn how to explore possibilities. Which area could you contribute the most? What you want to know more about? Where you want to be in 5, 10 years’ time?

3) Understand the gap. Once you have identified the possible career paths, it's time to understand how far you are from there. Which are the competencies, you need to develop to reach your career goals? How long it will take? It is important to establish a time dimension, aligning your expectation.

4) Ask for help and feedback. You don't need to be alone in this journey, try to identify someone from your networking (a Professor, a current or former leader, a person that you trust) that could guide you in this process.

5) Believe in yourself. There will be plenty of people saying that "you should give up", or that "you are not good enough", don't listen to them. Keep focus and listen to your dreams.

And then it's time to build your Career Development Plan. These five steps described above, could be identified as the "Planning phase". The "To Do" phase is to design your short-term plan (next twelve months) and long-term plan (in 5 years’ time). Both plans are linked, working in the short-term you will contribute to your long-term plan, building your future.

Are you ready to dream and work?