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"

In the second installment in this series of posts, I will discuss some things that we need to keep in mind to make a successful career and maintain consistently high level of performance and motivation.

We have been brought up in the competitive age to ensure that we gain a competitive edge (pun intended) over others. Be it our neighbours, our classmates when we were young or our colleagues when we enter our professional lives. Nothing wrong in wanting more than the guy (or girl) next door mind you. That's the whole foundation of capitalism and free market. But the way in which most of us go about the task of making that happen is fundamentally flawed and leads to more problems than it solves.

What do you do when you want to be better or gain promotion? We work harder and harder to be better than the guy who is better than us or ahead of us. There are two things that could happen once we achieve that (Don't worry, I am not going into the "Two things will happen" story). You either lose your motivation to perform better and stagnate or target the next guy in hierarchy and before you know, you will have entered the proverbial "Rat-Race" because the next guy will also do the same thing and you will end up chasing each other. In worst cases, I have seen nervous breakdowns and people going into depression because of failure to meet up to others' expectations.

So then the question remains, how do you ensure your growth and progress in such a cut-throat world. The solution to me a very simple. I just opted of the rat race. Before you say that I must be crazy, consider what I want to say. I compete against myself. I believe I am only one I have to beat or surpass. I take my last year's performance and try to improve on that performance. That way I can work within my limitations and can reset my expectations / directions midway if I feel that I need to correct my course.

I was also in the rat-race for a long time. During that period I found myself working harder and harder to earn more money in lesser increments and it was taking a toll on me. Once I realised that, I started tracking my progress against myself. Because I understood that it my own performance over which I have complete control. I can't really control what others are doing or not doing.

Every company has a formal performance review process. In case there isn't any, get together with your boss and set goals for yourselves. Once you get your annual performance review, print it out or make a copy for yourself and identify the key deliverables and performance measures for yourself. That is very important. You might do a great job in some of the area, but if that is not what is expected from you, you still stand to lose a lot. Once you have the list of performance measures, start tracking your progress against it every month or so.

If you feel that you need support in some areas, feel free to go and talk to your boss for the help. Be it training, guidance or resetting of goals, if you go and talk to your boss and your boss is even half decent, I am sure there will be a lot to gain.

This is from the business angle. There also is the need for personal growth in technical areas. How I do it is that at the start of the year (or review period), I identify two sets of skills that I want myself to acquire during the year. Not one, not three, but two. That way I can focus on each skill without getting over burdened and still at the end of the year I am a lot better off that I was at the beginning of the year.

This is how I personally do it and believe I have found a lot of mental peace once I started this.

Remember: You have only yourself to beat