If you are young, and have had the benefit of a good education, you will have many suitors in the job market. But a plenitude of opportunities also poses the challenge of choosing wisely and well. If too many of your peers have fallen for the glitz and the show and if easy money seems attractive, it is time you pause and think. If you are just out of management school, you have a 40-year working life ahead of you.
And that is a long time! At the pace of change we are experiencing, you are likely to have a varied career, with more than one employer, in more than one geography, and in more than a few jobs. If you are bold, you could strike out on your own and if you are resourceful and lucky, strike gold.
So, how must you choose if you are on the threshold of a career? What considerations should influence your decision? First, consider the challenge of the job and the opportunities it provides to acquire new skills or hone old ones. Trite as this may be, the evidence suggests that very often, other considerations, chiefly money and a recognised brand, count more.
And so, you would do well to interview your suitors to get to know more about your employers and the organisation they represent, the reasons for their interest in you and most important, the job offer and what it entails.
Will I be able to make a unique contribution? Does it challenge me sufficiently? Will it help me put my skills to use? What will I learn on this job that I do not know or possess? These are a few questions that can help guide your thinking. It is not enough that the answers to the questions are positive. You must then find out if the culture of the organisation and the environment in which it operates will allow you to make the contribution that you would like to make.
All of this suggests that you should know your mind, your strengths and weaknesses, the skills you possess and those you do not. Inventorying these will give you a clear idea of where you stand and what you should seek. Doing so will also help you temper your immediate aspirations with a keen sense of what your limitations are, an essential antidote to arrogance and hubris. More importantly, it will help you reach for opportunities that will train you in the skills you lack, but which you think are worth acquiring.
For skills matter more than knowledge in the practical world of business. Planning, organising , negotiating, working across cultures, communicating clearly and persuasively, listening, working in teams and decision-making are some of the skills that contribute to success at the work place. Though taught formally in business schools, these skills are best acquired and perfected at work.If the challenge of the job does not excite you, you would be better off declining the offer.
Indeed, as an employer, I would be disappointed if you evinced no more than perfunctory interest in understanding the job, your role, and the challenges it presents and focused instead on the title, compensation, how quickly you can rise through the ranks and how you can bolster your resume for the next job. Remember that today more than ever before, you have choice unlike the preceding generations who had to pretty much to accept what was on offer.
So choose wisely and well. Do not allow short-term considerations overwhelm your longer-term goals. Lastly, remember that nothing will make you unhappy than the tendency to compare yourself with your peers as you progress through your working life. To quote Wordsworth again, “The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but chance and circumstance happeneth to them all.”
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