Career Planning
When is it the right time for career planning? Many professionals may not agree with me, but that’s okay. In the context of Bangladesh, I believe it is right after finishing higher secondary school certificate (HSC) exam and before starting for graduation.
Now the question is why do I think like this? Well, after completing HSC we prepare ourselves to get admitted in medical colleges, engineering universities as well as in different public and private universities for graduation. Graduation is one of the most important parts of student life and we must make this decision thoroughly after finishing HSC. This will help us to shape up our future and career perfectly. This one very important decision will make us doctors, engineers, executives and so on. For example, if someone wants to be a doctor or an engineer, he/she has to go to medical or engineering college to learn and consequently to obtain his/her degree. But our education system is not very practical and as a result the degrees get undervalued sometimes. Therefore, it won’t be a matter of surprise here, if you are an EEE graduate, but working as a cashier in a bank. Well, if you are happy to survive in such way then it is fine.
As I have mentioned earlier that our education system is not very practical, most of the time we cannot apply the knowledge we gather during our graduation. We spent significant amount of time to complete pre- and post-graduation. But sometimes, when we start our career, we practically utilize our education very little or not at all and it is frustrating. However, we can utilize our education in a proper way, only if we make some proper planning about our career path before starting for graduation. Otherwise, it will be a challenge.
Now, I am going talk about some steps which may help you to build a strong and stable career.
Firstly, after completing higher secondary school certificate (HSC) exam, you must decide what you want to be in the future. It is a very critical decision for both our education and career. In our country, we face immense family and social pressure and most of the time, it forces us to get admitted to medical colleges, engineering or public universities. There is no wrong with that as long as we know for sure that it will serve us in our future career. However, if we do not know what we want to be and we just randomly attend universities due to family or social pressure then that is an issue. Because, at this point we don’t have any idea what career will be the best fit for us once we complete our graduation. Our families expect us to be doctors, engineers or public university graduates because of our current education system. But before we listen to our family how many of us actually think about our future career? Maybe a handful of people. If you want to be a doctor, go to medical college. If you want to be an engineer, go to engineering college. It’s completely alright. But if you become an engineer and end up working for corporate then what is the use of your engineering knowledge? It will imply that you just spent all of your time and energy for something which you are not going to take or try. But we can make the best use of our education if we decide earlier what we want to be in the future. If we want to be corporate executive then we should study business or management, not engineering. Thus, we will be able to utilize our education and knowledge and it will help us to boost up our career. It might be difficult. But if we can make this difficult, but right in right time then our education will serve us in the long run.
Assume that you have successfully made the right decision and started studying accordingly. What comes after that? Well, the real battle starts after completing graduation. Always remember one thing, job life is an endless battlefield and by completing your graduation you just become eligible for this battle. But it does not give you the surety that you will fight well and win. So, before you start for this battle you need to take some preparations. I will tell you about the preparations, but beforehand I would like to share one of my personal experiences. During my long career I have interviewed a lot of freshers and I was lucky enough to hire some of them. I hired them because they were a bit different than the others as they prepared themselves during their graduation. Remember, when you are in university you must acquire some knowledge about the current job market. You have to understand what recruiters are looking for in a fresh candidate. You must keep one thing in your mind that organizations are not coaching centers. They will not spend much of their valuable time to teach you everything. If you get hired by a company then you must learn very quickly and proactively.
Furthermore, you will be always appreciated if you were involved in some extracurricular activities or had part-time jobs during your graduation. Well, it is difficult to manage time for all these, but it is very effective for your career. Extracurricular activities are important because it reflects your leadership skill, communication skill, decision making abilities, your ability to work in a team. On the other hand, part time jobs give you real life experience. Do not neglect your part time career because when you will be in the battlefield, this experience will give you some extra benefits. You have to understand the basic, which is, it is not easy to manage a job. Because thousands of other students like you are also fighting to secure a job. So, there should be something that makes you different from them. And its’ your extracurricular activities and your job experience (part-time) that you have gathered during your university life which actually make you special.
Another important thing is communications skill. Most of the students are not eager to develop their communication skills which is suicidal for their career. We have to understand that communication is very important for us and to develop our communication skill we must learn English. Besides, we have to learn how to write our CV properly. In most of the cases, our CV do not reflect us accurately. But CV is the first thing that represents us to the recruiters. So, it must be complete and informative.
I always suggest students to remain updated about the requirements of job market. For this, keep an eye on job portals to understand the requirements the recruiters are looking for and prepare yourself accordingly. If you can manage time, do some courses which will add some extra value to your CV. For example, if you want to be an account professional you can do some courses on accounting software. Surely it will give you extra benefits and keep you one step ahead from others.
Last but not least, choosing a university is important. Before going to any public or private university, one thing must be kept in mind that this is a life time investment in terms of money and time. One thing must be remembered that a good educational institution is always preferred, but only a good educational institute or only good result may not help you to build a good career.
If you are a fresh graduate and you have missed all steps mentioned above then don’t worry. This is not the end of the world. I will tell you what to do in this circumstance to build up your career in my next article. Till then keep your spirits up.
Thanks for reading my article.
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