Deepstash

Choosing a Career

The Real Career Landscape
If you can figure out how to get a reasonably accurate picture of the real career landscape out there, you have a massive edge over everyone else, most of whom will be using outdated conventional wisdom as their instruction booklet.
How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You) - Wait But Why
The career pitfall
Careers used to be kind of like a 40-year tunnel. You picked your tunnel, and once you were in, that was that. You worked in that profession for 40 years or so before the tunnel spit you out on the other side into your retirement. Today’s career landscape isn’t a lineup of tunnels, it’s a massive, impossibly complex, rapidly changing science laboratory.
How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You) - Wait But Why
Use of a Personal SWOT Analysis
Your Personal ... S trengths W eaknesses O pportunities T hreats ... Analysis is a great tool to assess yourself in order to plan your career .
Personal SWOT Analysis to Assess and Improve Yourself - Creately Blog
4 Steps to do your SWOT analysis
List down the “strengths”. Knowing these will help you to be more confident in an interview or when looking for a job promotion. Know your “weaknesses”. Identifying weaknesses is the best way to improve them. Find matching “opportunities”. Opportunities come in different shapes and forms. Sometimes opportunities past by you without you even noticing them. Be aware of “threats”. Identify competition, new technologies, personal traits or obstacles.
Personal SWOT Analysis to Assess and Improve Yourself - Creately Blog
What makes you stand out? "Strengths"
What are the professional qualifications/certifications you have? Can your expertise in some area make a difference to the organization? What projects/campaigns have you completed successfully? Do you have powerful industry contacts? What other skills make you stand out from the rest? What do others think as your strengths?
Personal SWOT Analysis to Assess and Improve Yourself - Creately Blog
How to know your "Weaknesses"
Do you have the necessary skills/qualifications to be successful in your current or future roles? Do you have bad habits? What other traits can you improve to be more efficient? What do others think as your weaknesses?
Personal SWOT Analysis to Assess and Improve Yourself - Creately Blog
Find your "Opportunities"
Can you take advantage of any significant changes/advancements in your industry? Has new technology or industry trend emerged that you can make use of future? Is a new position advertised in your company that matches your skill set? Is there a new project in your organization that you can join which will benefit your career? Can acquiring new skills give you a competitive advantage?
Personal SWOT Analysis to Assess and Improve Yourself - Creately Blog
Some "Threats" to consider
Is one of your peers doing a better job than you in a similar role? Is popularity of new technologies or demise of old technologies threatening your career? Are your personal traits hurting your career advancements? What are the obstacles that prevent you from achieving your targets?
Personal SWOT Analysis to Assess and Improve Yourself - Creately Blog
When to do a personal SWOT analysis?
When going to an interview. When applying for a promotion. Before a career switch.
Personal SWOT Analysis to Assess and Improve Yourself - Creately Blog
The personal SWOT analysis
Captures information about your internal (S) strengths and (W) weaknesses as well as external (O) opportunities and (T) threats .
How To Conduct A Personal SWOT Analysis
The key to completing your SWOT analysis is to treat your career as a business and yourself as a competitive product .
How To Conduct A Personal SWOT Analysis
Understand your strengths
A personal strength is an asset to you as a product and can be used as a way to differentiate yourself from others when interviewing or trying to obtain your next promotion.
How To Conduct A Personal SWOT Analysis
Know your weakness
A personal weakness is a liability or an area of opportunity for growth . Examples : Disorganized, uncomfortable speaking in front of groups, tendency to procrastinate, poor listener.
How To Conduct A Personal SWOT Analysis
Threats as possible Opportunities
As objectively as possible, judge your threats and determine possible ways to overcome them. Example of a Threat : Other candidates have college degrees. Turn it into an Opportunity : Go to night school and finish my bachelor's degree
How To Conduct A Personal SWOT Analysis
The purpose of a SWOT analysis
- To identify actions you can take to best meet the requirements of the job or promotion you are seeking. - Comparing your strengths and weaknesses to the job requirements will identify gaps and help you prepare to be the best candidate for the position to which you aspire.
How To Conduct A Personal SWOT Analysis
The strongest determinants of job satisfaction are
Relations with colleagues and supervisors Task diversity Job security
What makes us satisfied with our jobs? - Barking Up The Wrong Tree
Why Career-path-carving is important.
Time . A typical career will take up somewhere between 20% and 60% of your meaningful adult time. Quality of Life. Your career has a major effect on all your non-career hours. Impact. Whatever shape your career path ends up taking, the world will be altered by it. Identity. We tell people about our careers by telling them what we are.
How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You) - Wait But Why
The simple career framework
List careers you want/find desirable. List all careers that are realistic to potentially achieve. Find the overlapping areas between what is desirable, and what is possible.
How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You) - Wait But Why
5 Conflicting Yearnings that influence the Careers you want.
Personal. The human need for fulfilment. Social. Diverse social desires that want to be relevant, important, widely known, accepted, well-liked and agreeable. Lifestyle. The desire to have a stress-free life. Moral. The desire to do something philanthropic, or to display altruistic behaviour. Practical. The desire to look after your practical needs, like food, clothing, housing.
How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You) - Wait But Why
Uncovering your real career related wants.
Play the Why Game : Why is this something I want? Look at your Denial Prison : Uncovering your authentic wants that are repressed. Priority Ranking s: Almost as important as the wants themselves is the priority they’re given.
How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You) - Wait But Why
The Career Landscape
Broad landscape. The landscape today is made up of thousands of options and the way things work today, if there’s an option you want that’s not already out there, you can probably create it for yourself. Specific Career Path. A career path is like a game board. The conventional wisdom bookshelf contains instruction booklets for only a small fraction of today’s available game boards—and those that it does have usually tell you how that game was played in the past, even though the current game board has evolved significantly into something with new kinds of opportunities and different rules and loopholes.
How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You) - Wait But Why
Understanding Your Potential
When assessing your chances on a certain career path, the key question is: With enough time, could you get good enough at this game to potentially reach whatever your definition of success is in that career?
How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You) - Wait But Why
Plot your Career Path
After considering The general landscape Specific careers Where your Starting point is (based on your current skills, resources, and connections relevant to that field) Your Success point/End point Your estimate of your pace of improvement Your level of persistence you are able to plot your career path forward.
How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You) - Wait But Why
The effects of job dissatisfaction
are stronger for workers with lower tenure , better educated workers, workers in the private sector and when the economy and labor market are in a good condition.
What makes us satisfied with our jobs? - Barking Up The Wrong Tree