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Make a career plan this year if you haven't already; these 5 steps will help you make an actionable career plan that you can implement and track as well.
Make a career plan this year if you haven’t already; these 5 steps will help you make an actionable career plan that you can implement and track as well.
You don’t need to wait for a new year to come by to set your goals, but as we progress into 2017, for a lot of people, a new year translates to hope hope that this year is going to be different; that this year they will ‘make it’. This could be chasing the elusive number on a scale, scaling a mountain, being a better parent or dusting off that guitar stashed away somewhere in the dark corner of a closet.
While I haven’t listed out a five-step plan on getting you to strum your favourite number in time for ringing in 2018, I do have one for you as far as your career plan goes!
Far too many women tend to just ‘go with it’ as far as their career goes. Setting a goal will help you build a vision for your career, motivate you and give you something concrete to work towards, that is of your own design and making.
You will need to identify your skills and interests and map the two. Then define where you want to be, a milestone that you want to achieve. If you have defined a long term big milestone as part of your career plan, then break it up into smaller milestones to be achieved in a year or two.
Ask yourself the following:
What’s the gap between where you are today and where you want to be, in terms of skills and experience? It’s worth noting that study after study shows that while men will be promoted on the potential they have shown, women need to prove that they can handle the work that they are taking up before they are awarded the role. A little bit of a chicken and egg situation unfortunately, but being aware of these gender biases will help you circumvent them.
Are you on the right path this far – your current role, organization and environment – are they conducive for where you want to be? Is your manager an ally or a barrier? Your manager will pay a key role in whether you will be able to achieve the growth you are looking for, so you will need to pay special attention to your equation with him/her.
What are your personal barriers – self limiting beliefs, bandwidth to take on more?
What’s your ‘brand’ – the image you have built? Will your brand help you get to where you want to be? What have you portrayed yourself as an expert in?
If there aren’t any fundamental gaps (e.g the organization or manager) then the next step would be to communicate what you want to achieve with your manager.
Align with them on the feasibility of what you want to achieve.
Be prepared with a list of asks – what you need from him/her for you to achieve this – e.g, work on a specific project to gain a skill that you need.
Ask your manager to define a set of KPIs that you need to achieve in order for you to achieve your goal.
The first three steps revolved around you and your world; however, the fact is that you can’t work in a silo. Do the networking you need to do, be aware of what’s going on with the organization’s direction, strategic interests, profits etc.
It’s time to do the hard work.
Break your goal into weekly actionable steps.
Work on all the gaps you have defined.
Work on what you have agreed with your manager
Check-in with your manager regularly – this will keep you accountable, and remind your manager of your goal.
When the time is right, march up to your manager and ask and negotiate to see your goal to fruition!
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First published here
Vaijayanthi Bhat is the founder of a Gender Diversity and Womens leadership consultancy called BreadCrumbsCo (www.BreadCrumbsCo.com).She is a women’s leadership certified coach. She has more than 12 years of corporate experience, read more...
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Children should be taught to aspire to be successful, but success doesn't have to mean an IIT admission only!
Imagine studying for 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 whole years for the JEE exam only to find out that there’s only a very, very slim chance of getting into an IIT. It is a fact widely acknowledged that the IIT-JEE is one of the toughest exams not just in India but in the whole world. Apart from IITs, the NITs and IIITs of India also accept the JEE scores for admission. There are said to be a total of 23 IITs, 31 NITs and 25 IIITs across the country.
Now, let’s first get a few facts about the IITs right. First, according to the NIRF rankings of 2023, only 17 IITs rank in the top 50 engineering colleges of India and only a few (around 5) IITs are in the list of the world’s top 100 engineering colleges. Second, the dropout rate of IIT-qualifying students stands at least at 20%, with reasons being cited ranging from academic pressure and unmanageable workload to caste discrimination and high levels of competition within the IIT.
So, it’s quite clear that the journey of making it through IIT is as challenging as the journey of getting into an IIT. Third and most important of all, the acceptance rate or the odds of getting into an IIT are below 3% which is a lot lower than the acceptance rate of highly and very highly ranked US universities. Four, getting into an IIT of one’s choice doesn’t mean one will also get into a branch of one’s preference at that IIT.
Dr Nalini Parthasarathi, 79, based in Puducherry has dedicated 30 years of her life caring for people suffering from hemophilia.
It is amazing when a person turns personal adversity into a calling, and extends empathy to make a significant impact in the lives of other people. This has been the life’s journey of Dr Nalini Parthasarathi.
April 17 is World Hemophilia Day. Dr Nalini Parthasarathi, 79, based in Puducherry has dedicated 30 years of her life caring for people suffering from hemophilia. She was honoured with the Padma Shri in 2023.
Hemophilia is a condition where one or more clotting factor is absent leading to bleeding. Severe cases can be life-threatening.
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