Prepare For Your Career

I’ve analysed what is happening and begun to point the way for those who want to pre-empt the changes rather than wait until they are overtaken by them. Now is the time to decide which category you come into.
Those willing to plan will be rewarded; those not willing to do so will have to take potluck. There are six essentials for your new work life:
Be a specialist in one area but make sure you are more widely qualified and trained than just for your specialisation.
Understand yourself as thoroughly as you can.
Doing this is not a ‘one-off’ operation. We all change as we learn more and grow. Now is the moment to find out what you really want to do. Those who are ambitious to make money have a chance to get themselves equipped to take advantage of the new workplace. Those who want to help socially can prepare themselves for the new needy. They will be quite different from those we think of as ‘poor’ today and their requirements will be much more challenging. Those who seek to advance science or enjoy an academic life will have to be closer to the application of their studies and teaching.
Write a career plan.
It doesn’t have to be a major document, bound in silk. One page should be enough to tell you where you are heading and how you are going to get there. But it has to be a well-thought-out page. You should take stock of your career at least once a year, however well you are doing. You wouldn’t leave your money unattended for any longer. Why leave your career to find it’s own way.
Based on your career plan, equip yourself with the qualifications you need. You don’t have to leave work to do this. There are many courses you can take outside work hours. Select the ones that will benefit you in the portfolio of jobs you will most likely be doing to which I referred previously.
Train and re-train so that you keep your skills up to date.
Just as a building needs retrofitting quite frequently, so your skills need honing and polishing, especially when they are concerned with the new technologies. Sales personnel who don’t know their products are going to the wall. Surgeons who don’t keep up with the new developments are going to the courts.
If you are not already equipped to handle the main new technologies, remedy this failing without delay. You are going to need all the resources you can muster. I already notice people who can’t or won’t understand the new communication technologies falling well behind their rivals – and that applies at the top of the organisation as well as at the bottom.
Prepare the family to be part of the work team.
Yes, even the young children should understand that the breadwinners are working for them and they must help in their own ways. You couldn’t prepare them better for their working lives.
Establish and cultivate your network.
Networking is already important – we all know that. In The New Work World it is going to be even more so. This aspect of your preparation for dealing with The New Work Revolution is so important that I am going to devote the next article exclusively to it.
John Bittleston blogs at TerrificMentors.com, a site that provides mentoring for those who wish a change in career or job, wanting to start a business or looking to improve their handling of people (including themselves).