Invest in Yourself - Build your Career

The career escalator is jammed today. It is not anymore the same situation as it existed a decade back. The industry and markets are changing at rapid pace and so are the expectations. The professionals are experiencing growing expectations and diminishing returns. It is all happening at a rapid pace. The work life balance is impacted & have you noticed that people have stopped complaining about it. Why, one would think? Perhaps there is a realization that nothing much can be done or controlled in this area. Perhaps people think that there compensation factors this. The problem does not go away and it manifests in different forms impacting health and relationships. It becomes a vicious cycle. It will come to fore one day. We know it but hope & wish that such a day or moment does not come too fast. It does and then we end up thinking, if only!  

Answers, are there any?

An awful lot of our current challenges at work place arise from lack of career planning & investing in ourselves to build contemporary and relevant capabilities.

Having said that, rather than look at what could have been in the past, building the career, we must begin from where we are. I would therefore like to extend a perspective, which most of you may know, but as they say perhaps it is relevant now much more than ever. There are more , but I am saving them for my next blog on “ building networks” to build careers.

The perspective is “Be in permanent beta”. If one browses through any resume of professional, it is structured to share accomplishments in particular role & company. Assuming you have stayed in same role & company for 4 years, your resume will talk about all you did and achieved there. If the interviewer seeks to know what have been accomplishments unique to each year of these 4 years, my guess is the professionals may not be able to say much. At best, he/she is likely to say achieved the KRA’s & targets year on year. 

In this situation it may be a worthwhile question for the professional to ask themselves “Do I have 4 years work experience” or do I have 1 year work experience repeated 4 times”. Think.  This is where the concept of “Permanent Beta” makes sense. Borrowed from IT industry, when a solution is launched for customers it is called “Beta Phase”. In this phase there is close look at customer feedback and solutions effectiveness. Based on this there are improvements brought about and over a period this beta phase is completed. I understand that popular GMAIL was in beta phase for close to 3 years after launch. Beta phase is a period when you focus on the product / solution ‘s success through feedback and make it achieve the intended objectives for organization and end customer.

In the professional careers, it is seen when we have our job ( even a dream role) one tends to be limited by what needs to be accomplished . However the new approach of staying in Beta phase means that each year you acquire a new and unique capability & your accomplishments stand out based on your own new initiative, innovation and creativity. It could be a new skill training, certification program or plain simple education/ course.  It could be seeking new roles, or geographies or challenges in the same company. Just that focus has to be what I have acquired uniquely each year which propels me, encourages me to make my journey towards my long term career goals. Invest in building your capabilities even when the organizations are not supporting you. At best they would invest in training you to be capable to do the job / role you have with them.

No one else is interested in building your career. It is you & it should be your interest only. That’s how it is now. Face it. Get in to “BETA”, son. !!! & stay there. Lifelong.