The Investments of Career Management

Career Management can be defined as the combination of structured planning and the active management choice of one's own professional career. The outcome of successful career management should include personal fulfillment, work life balance, goal achievement and financial security.  

Career management is a concept of future planning for achieving ones career goals within the acceptable time limit. One needs to invest in their future to ensure a steady harvest of right opportunities professionally. Career Management focuses on our best investments assets namely,  Learning Management and Relationships Management.

Learning Management

Learning never stops, in fact if it does, then so does growth. To ensure that our career aspirations are achieved one must keep increasing their learning index. This can be achieved through advancement in academic knowledge base through Training Programs, Advanced courses, specialization programs and refresher courses. In addition to this one must expand their professional knowledge through literature, books, tutorials, supplements etc.

Relationship Management

As we have moved to an information and service economy, relationships have become an increasingly critical asset. Not only do our relationships help us accomplish our day-to-day tasks with colleagues, vendors, customers and competitors, these relationships will be the source of information about how fields and industries are evolving. We also have relationships outside of our work environments that may be affiliated with our hobbies, children and spiritual or community networks. These personal and professional relationships will transcend specific companies, industries and communities. How we interact, respond and connect in all our relationships will impact our present performance and future opportunities. Very little is accomplished in isolation. Networking uncovers more than 70% of current job openings.

Keeping connected and knowing how to build good relationships are more important than ever before. These skills can be developed in applied communication courses, mastering contact management software, effective listening and genuine desire to get to know people better.

Integrating Learning and Relationship Management

Learning and Relationship Management form the backdrop of successful career management. Creating a vision and plan are also essential to guiding informed investment decisions and establishing annual goals. The career vision we establish  should be broad enough to be flexible, but specific enough to be actionable. This career vision, built on a profile of our unique traits, directs our choices to develop what we need to be satisfied and be able to successfully contribute in different work environments over the years. To maintain our adaptability and employability, habitually establishing annual learning goals and nurturing our relationships are the keys to productive career management.

The key to a successful and fulfilling career is how well we are able to nurture Learning and relationships in our professional lives and how well we are able to integrate them to achieve our career goals.