Planning your career

As a part of my job, I work with a team of people who work on disparate technologies with different aspirations. Most of them were fresh out of college and some of them had joined us from another company with some experience under their belts. As I had clocked more years than most, they were looking at me for some advise related to their careers and how to plan it.

Contrary to expectations, managing expectations of the freshers was tougher than the experienced people. The experienced people (known as "Laterals") understand how corporations work and how careers are planned and progress. The freshers come out of the college with some romantic notions about their professional lives and the things they want to achieve and changes they want to make happen. I am not saying that they are totally wrong or companies suppress their creative instincts, initiatives or out-of-box thinking. But the fact remains that every new idea, proposal or suggestion has to be seen in a different light as compared to the individual's perspective. Similarly the career progressions are planned keeping in mind the growth plan and direction of the entire organisation and not just the individual's wishes. For example, I would be in a totally wrong place, if I am working in Microsoft but want to make a career in Linux or Oracle database administration. Although my career goals may be perfectly appropriate, they would not be realised in the current context.

Once we realise this then planning a career becomes a little simpler. Though not totally. Then there is the question of really planning your career once you are in the technology / stream / area / profession that you are comfortable with.

For the freshers, I always used to tell them to plan their careers with the bigger picture in mind. For a person leading a normal life, barring any surprises, the normal work life is approximate 35 to 36 years. That's quite a long period. If we get depressed, dejected after just 1 or 1.5 years and lose confidence, then we cannot go anywhere. I always tell people to plan what they want to retire as and then plan their careers in blocks of 3-5 years. This helps us to keep focus on our objective and the correct course if required. The same advise is applicable to laterals as well. If they have not done it yet, then they can do it now and take it from there.

For the laterals specifically, I ask them three questions (or three and a half, if you would):

1. What do you want to do 3-5 years down the line?
2. What did you want to do a couple years back?
3. Do you think you are on right track taking into consideration answers for 1 & 2? If not what do you need to do?

These questions should be asked in context to the overall career goal that you might have planned. I am quite confident that we get most of the answers we need to plan our careers. Even the freshers should ask themselves these questions once they have clocked some years and have formed some ideas about their careers.

Just another bit of advice before I close:

"It's easy to do what you like, but the real trick to happiness is to like what you do"