‘Career Advice’ – How it changed from Boring to Unconventionally Interesting
Just the mention of the word career advice, can bring throwback memories of instances and encounters where you might have been heaped with tips and guidelines to rock your professional world, sometimes valuable and many a times just predictable gibberish.
We all go through phases, where we think, “I know what is best for me.”
Fair enough. But consider this – What if you ace at first attempt, avoid repeated failures, use minimal resources and reach the goal post faster?
That’s where some breakthrough careers advice can come to rescue. Not to save you from wrong choices but to help you choose right ones faster.
The advice is based on author’s personal experiences
The genesis of this article came from a very exciting narration by Raghav Haran, who hosts 13,000+ readers on career advice.
In his article titled “Career Advice No One Tells You”, he shares info that can help anyone to achieve great heights if they just have two things in place -sincere passion for the job and a will to try something original and unassuming.
What is refreshing in the published piece is that the advice is based on author’s personal experiences that landed him plush assignments, redefining the basics of job search and work principles.
Don’t be afraid to take a pay cut for the right experience
His list on career advice captures the best of best that is out there for someone to try and reap benefits.
A couple of points that are pleasantly surprising and sure to grab attention include:
“Job Requirements are Negotiable” – Raghav very blatantly puts out the fact that being proactive and a go-getter helps you to land any job imaginable (except for highly technical or academic ones) if you can convince others about how you can bring value.
Requirements though on face value seem to be non-negotiable, always have a workaround. This fresh approach got him job with Quora.
While applying for the product design position there, instead of waiting for things to happen, he ran a usability test on mobile app and sent the design suggestions to head of product design.
Result? – An instant response from the Head to schedule an interview. Wow!
“Don’t be afraid to take a pay cut for the right experience” – Many might doubt the intentions of this statement. However, the author is quite convinced with this one as he states that successful people around him swear by this one.
Job is for fulfilling long-term goals that enriches a person, and not just to impress family/friends with fat salaries and titles. Impatience can be a spoiler.
From choosing a boss over company, understanding the illusion of “realistic” dreams, to focusing on exposure and ‘other’ doors to success, Raghav’s rendition on career advice is both powerful and thought provoking.
Unique ‘Career Advice’ Quick Bits Ruling the Web
You can always find something useful to pick up and internalize from the hoard of information available.
Global career advice experts and popular front-runners in different walks of life have bared their secrets to success for the general good.
So whether you are out to find a job or grow within existing one, these inspirational ideas can work wonders. Read on.
Mentorship is a big thing – Identify and learn from the best. This seemingly simple ideology can change the way you perceive things and lead to real personal fulfillment.
You might already know “what to do” but where a mentor adds value is by showing “how to do” something. It’s like inheriting legacy of knowledge and experience.
Step back and ‘Unlearn’ usual career hokum – A career graph hardly follows linear pattern. This is largely due to changing jobs, interests, times, culture and ways of working.
It’s marked by disruption. This calls for abandoning the tried and tested paths and embracing flexibility in true sense.
In current era, more and more work population is inclining towards independent contracts on temporary basis – A ‘gig’ economy.
Molding self to changing demands and learning skills necessary to thrive in a given timeframe is a reality everyone should unlock.
Lateral Moves are ‘not bad’ – Amit Singh (President, Google for Work) left a prominent job at Oracle to help Google build a new and at that time unproven, business, Google Apps for Work.
Some might have perceived it as a folly to take such seemingly insignificant step especially when his career was going great guns at Oracle.
But his advice does ring a wise bell when he says “Sometimes you have to take a sideways move to get to something bigger, which may not be obvious right away.”
Thinking long-term never harmed anyone.
‘Reverse Engineer’ Your Career – This is a habit that comes with some solid planning and thought process. VaynerMedia CEO Gary Vaynerchuk, who became millionaire by age 35 has benefitted from this one cool method.
How is it done? You can do this by going back, step-by-step from the big dream you have to this very moment in time. Figure out what the steps are and get going. It’s real time miraculous practice.
Get inspired and Learn from Generationally Diverse Network – This requires conscious effort to build a professional network that can not only help you to leverage these connects for professional gain but also inspire you to do more in your career.
Ability to communicate and learn from different generations and backgrounds breaks the rut and motivates ‘job crafting’ where people find creative ways to add meaningful tasks into work on their own.
The more you ask, more you get
The more you ask for it the more you get. It is what you do with career advice that makes all the difference.
Plus, mimicking others habits would hardly help. Identify where you want to reach and how badly. The means to an end will largely depend on your individual preferences and appetite to succeed.
Mitalee
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A small and apparently an unusual step can lift you to big heights. Check out CakeHR software to know how a small effort of ours is enabling big changes at work.