How to Achieve Your Career Dream with 7 Steps Career Plan

Unimaginable numbers of teenagers are not aware of the need for a career plan, this is one of the reasons why they don’t mind any course of study or change course of study in as much any school is ready to give them admission. Their orientation is simply that, they should be able to get a good job with their certificates after graduation, and very few ever think of entrepreneurship. Their ideology about entrepreneurship is seen as an option when you have enough startup capital working with a reputable organization and maybe after retirement. No wonder many entrepreneurs ventures out as an alternative to unemployment.

6 Steps Career Plan

The need for a career plan cannot be overemphasis; it goes beyond wishes or sitting down just daydreaming without setting goals with plans and cultivating a habit to achieve your career dream.

Either you choose to become gainfully employed or go into entrepreneurship before or after graduation. The following steps will help you grasp how to achieve your career dream if you have one.

1.   You Need a Mentor

2.   What are the Career Options for You

3.   The Knowledge, Skills, and Qualification Required

4.   Take Advantage of Apprenticeship, Volunteering, and Internship

5.   Keep Setting Goals and Plans

6.   Be Digitally Skillful.

7.   Don’t Forget the Need for Regular Updates

You Need a Mentor

I can’t stop emphasizing the need for mentoring as part of your career plan. This has helped lots of people around me to achieve in a few years what they think will take a lifetime to achieve.

While your instinct, desire, and basic knowledge will have its place in your career choice, your mentor will be knowledgeable enough to guide you not just to choose but to follow up through the 7 (seven) steps.

There is one thing you will do for me, be inquisitive and your mentor will love that if he/she is a good one.

I am not disputing your parents or guardians may occupy this space for you, they might not have the professional understanding and may result to sentiment but if you are fortunate to have such super parents or guardians guiding you out of sentiment, I say congratulation but don’t relent, follow up with the 7 (seven) steps.

What are the Career Options for You?

Putting mentoring in number one have lots of reasons, working with your mentor you will be able to know career opportunities that will suit your personality and whether you have or will be able to undergo the required knowledge skills and qualifications.

The need for affordability also comes to play and if the needed financial resources are not available what are the entry options or scholarship opportunities if any.

The Knowledge, Skills, and Qualification Required

A career could be built on natural talent, but notwithstanding there will surely arise the need for additional training, knowledge, and skills. In some cases, you may also need certificates to show for the ability you claim you have from a reputable authority. So, you need to work with your mentor to work this out in advance.

If there is a need for advanced education, you need to choose the relevant course of study for your career ambition and if that is not possible, what better and related alternatives are available without compromising the future.

Take Advantage of Apprenticeship, Volunteering, and Internship

If you are not taking anything seriously in this piece, never take for granted this advice. Learning practical skills and volunteering for causes that will help you achieve your career dream is important than your certificates.

Volunteering and internship is an opportunity to showcases your talent, skills, and network in an environment where you can later request for employment or business apart from gaining required corporate experience so important to achieve your career dream

This is a process before and during your advanced education not after it. A virtual interview I conducted with Yunus Ibrahim a fresh graduate who started volunteering and going for an internship right from year one in school and Khairat Bashorun a final year student confirm this. These two seem to have automatic employment, initiatives, and business even before they finish their academic education as a result of involving themselves in skills acquisition, volunteering, and internship. I can guarantee there is no stop in between your career journey except you decided to.

Keep Setting Goals and Plans

A SMART goal is needed to fasten achieving anything you desire and your career goals are not an exception. By smart I mean your goals must be Specific, Measureable, Achievable Realistic, and Timely.

To achieve the career goals there should be plans in between the plan. Either short or long term goals, you need to create step by step plan to make it achievable.

Be Digitally Skillful

This age favour digitally smart people. If you are digitally skillful every step of your career plan becomes easily achievable.

Whether you are looking for a mentor, want to know your career choice qualification requirement, searching for skills, volunteer, or internship opportunities, you have a better chance of using your digital skills to search online.

We all need to create and promote our personal brand to achieve our career dreams, and this is not possible without digital skills. This is what social media is all about these days. Your social media account is now your new curriculum vitae, use it to promote yourself.

And if you choose to go into entrepreneurship or set up any initiative, with digital skills, you can use social media to commence the journey of creating a world-class brand.

Don’t Forget the Need for Regular Updates

The need for regular updates is a must, if not; you will become obsolete in no time. The digital revolution makes changes occur in a speed of light, except you keep update your skills, knowledge, and information; your career dream will just die in a jiffy.

With digital technology, it is not a must you have to keep going back to the four walls of schools; you can get a lot done via the internet 

In Conclusion

One of the causes of depression is the inability to figure out what to do with your life when you are supposed to reaping the fruit of your effort. That is even for someone who is still determined to achieve a reasonable result from their career. Lots of people give up totally and subject themselves to survival.

Many people wasted lots of precious time and recourses following the wrong career track. It could be true that know “knowledge is at lost” but an effort in the right direction is never incomparable with guesswork.

With a career plan, you can save yourself lots of time and resources to achieve your career dream in a short possible time.

This article was first published on www.empowermite.com