Career coaches are increasingly sought out as young professionals fresh out of academia seek to find their professional footing and establish a strong base for their career. Career coaches assess your current standing and create action goals to assist your professional advancement. They focus on outcomes and accomplishments, demand concrete results and often challenge and encourage you to realise your ambition, which is likely to be higher than you had initially envisioned, and steer you towards your goals. Career coaches can be any one—a parent, teacher, mentor, peer, sibling et cetera who are continuously coaching you and keeping track of your progress. In this article we focus on arguably the most important and often neglected career coach—yourself.

Assessment

The primary and most critical step in any self-career coaching is self-assessment—individuals should be able to measure, evaluate and test their professional qualities as they have honed over the years, to identify and shape their professional footing. Self-assessment is a procedure to choosing an ideal career fit through a series of self-monitored drills, reflections, and analysis to learn more about oneself including likes, dislikes, skills, interests, strengths and other characteristics. It helps you to identify assets you may not have been aware of, thereby expanding your trajectory, and redirects your focus to areas in which you need more training and experience so that you can realise your professional ambition and meet your goals. Undertake projects relevant to your career to identify which tasks you genuinely enjoy and look forward to and which tasks you deliberately avoid or lack confidence in. Once you have identified such, take it upon yourself to turn these into opportunities by taking advantage of your strengths and eliminating your weaknesses or turning them into newly acquired strengths.

Identify possible careers

Climbing the career ladder can be an exhilarating and even overwhelming ride. For the majority of professionals, the conclusion of academic study signifies the start of their working life, usually in an entry-level position in their chosen field. It is from there onwards that one can build their desirable career through uncompromising hard work, constant self-assessment and improvement, and seizing every opportunity that would bolster their advancement to the next level. It is critical for any ambitious professional to carefully plan the development of their career, and more important, to be patient and persistent in their efforts to identifying opportunities and charging ahead in the professional world at your desired pace. A quick tip to advancing one’s career is to jot down as many possible opportunities as one can every day and customise or trim your list accordingly to suit your most relevant job openings. While doing such, it is important to factor in any consideration such as one’s current and desired lifestyle, compensation, job security et cetera that can provide direction. Having said as much, it is imperative that you take some time to identify what is important to you and know specifically which position you are working towards or how far you would like to advance professionally.

Identify the best strategies

At the base of any good strategy to finding a secure and desirable job is rigorous self-assessment as described in the first section of this article. Once you have identified your qualities as a professional, you can employ job search engines and networking sites such as LinkedIn to identify employment trends and find new opportunities relevant to your career. Make use of available technology and vehemently track employment and industrialist specialists. At the same time, be careful not to neglect real-life contacts as it is largely known and accepted that people are more likely to work with individuals they know personally or those that have been recommended by people they are familiar with. Let family, friends and acquaintances know that you are looking for openings and be receptive and appreciative of their help as you begin to network and build connections.

Having said as much, it is crucial that you develop and establish a statement for yourself, similar to a brand, as per your desire. Think of how you wish to represent yourself and employ your online presence to market yourself. Securing a personal website can be a huge asset in showcasing your professional achievements and ambitions as can writing scholarly papers, grant proposals, and accumulating impressive job application materials such as your CV and cover letter as a strategic means to present your personal brand, which is simply put your promise of value.

Prepare for the job

Having followed the above steps, it is now time for you to prepare for your job. You should be able to, and good at, writing a professional curriculum vitae and cover letter. You should possess the skills necessary to use the optimum job search tools to find opportunities and openings that will help you build and advance in your career. You should be well prepared for your interview, which is key to establishing a stellar first impression, albeit largely considered to be a most intimidating step. You should research the company’s profile, background and mission statement, anticipate likely questions from the interviewer and prepare accordingly, jot down a few questions to ask your interviewer, and practice seriously with a friend to boost your confidence. Lastly, you should be prepared for any outcome and should be willing and able to handle an acceptance or rejection without any repentance.

Kharel is the Managing Director at Kantipurjob.com