The Key to Career Guidance

It makes sense if you think about it. We spend so much time at our jobs, that having the best career guidance is perhaps just as important as the right career training. After all, what good is developing a specific skill set if you don't know the right way to employ it? Career guidance rightfully has blossomed into a huge industry in its own right, with workshops, books, courses and subscription web sites. However, career guidance is largely repetitive and watery in terms of thorough content. Here is a condensed, non-industry specific, career guidance guide that will only take you a few minutes to read, and could change your job future for the better.

The most important bit of advice I've heard about career guidance is to be flexible and focused. What does this mean? Well, having specific goals is important, as is a dedicated plan to reach these goals. In decades past, this was all that one needed in terms of career guidance. Nowadays, however, the job market is more volatile, and career advancement virtually never follows a straight line. It goes without saying then that you should not expect such a straight-forward path. But surprisingly, when I ask people more and more about the details of their career path, they expect such a curve-free journey. This just isn't practical.

The knee-jerk reaction is, of course, to make no plans at all - after all, the plans will ultimately be irrelevant anyhow. This is, again, obviously a mistake. But, just like in employee expectations as I noted above, most people forgo the obvious and approach their career without a plan. The key to this career guidance plan is that it has a strong focus while being flexible. What does this mean, practically speaking? It might mean to aim for the promotion in your company and get the additional certification or skill set expansion necessary. The promotion might shrink or disappear - but most likely, the additional training will grant you the opportunity to find a better job anyway - at a different company. This is the sort of practical career guidance you need in this shifting economy.

The overall point is that you, as an employee, prospective or otherwise, need to view yourself as a company, whether its your current employer, their competition or one in a different field altogether. View yourself as a commodity, and then ask yourself if you can improve your value to your company. Improved value leads to better pay, position, status and other benefits. As a corollary, your greatest value as an employee might be in a different field altogether.