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Planning Your Ideal Career
Title: Planning your ideal careerAuthor: Martin Ward Anderson
Article:
When first thinking about planning your career and finding
yourself a new job, you should be realistic. Look at what
experiences you have, the skills you have gained and what your
strengths and weaknesses are. Is the career path you are looking
at achievable with your current skills or will you need to
partake in further training to achieve this. Looking forward may
not necessarily mean leaving your current employer as you could
apply for a different role in the company that better suits your
career path. There are many factors to consider as staying with
your current company may have advantages as there is less risk
in applying for a new role. Once you have fully considered the
situation you are currently in then you need to look at short
and long term options such as, the sector, company activities, ,
size of organization, career prospects and opportunities.
Bearing these things in mind can lead you to find you dream job
working for a great company. Once you have decided in what
direction you would like you career to take, you have to think
about how to market yourself. The competition will be extremely
high in large companies in popular sectors, so you need to
market yourself effectively. This will require a combination of
presenting yourself well in person and on paper. In both these
situations, you need to highlight the areas in which you have
succeeded in the past, your skills and experience you can
provide in the desired role. The CV you provide will be the
first time the employer learns about you, so should therefore be
seen as a marketing tool. The aim of the CV is to get you to the
next stage, the interview. Your CV should be concise, provide
personal details, provide previous success, qualifications,
experience and should be honest. You should make drafts of your
CV and get friends or colleagues to read it and give you
feedback. A tip for writing a great CV is promoting yourself by
describing unique skills or interests that make you stand out
from the rest of the applicants. If you are sending the CV by
post, you should print it on high quality plain white paper or
if you are sending it by e-mail, you should use standard fonts
and use a universal format like a Microsoft Word file. When
sending your CV to a potential employer, you should include a
covering letter. The covering letter should compliment your CV
and be tailored towards the job you are applying for. If your CV
and covering letter win you an interview, the next stage is to
research the company and the people you will be meeting. The key
to a successful interview is planning. Preparation and research
should make you less nervous when it comes down to the real
thing. On the day of the interview, you should be punctual,
confident, present yourself well, be friendly and use eye
contact. If you are asked a difficult question that you can't
answer, be truthful and admit you are unsure, interviewers can
tell if you are bluffing. Hopefully you interviewer will like
what they see and ether offer you a second interview or offer
you a job.