Plan Big or Stay Broke: Nobody is coming to cut soap for you

We all know how that saying goes – “he who fails to plan, plans to fail” and that’s exactly right. Failing to plan your finances can get you in a shitload of financial problems and worries.  Failing to plan for your lover’s birthday can cause you sifia chest pain or breakfast in bed (I know you know what I’m talking about). Similarly, not taking the time to plan yourself a career that’ll be absolutely rewarding for years to come, is you doing yourself dirty, and that’s real talk. 

Some might ask, what do you mean by planning a career and how does that even work? Well, keep reading. This one’s for you. 

If you’ve ever dreamed of living the good life, whether it’s traveling the world, ‘Dorime-ing’ daily at the club, eating at the most exquisite restaurants, taking care of loved ones, being an Odogwu, or whatever it is that’ll bring you that sense of fulfillment, you know that those things require a steady supply of funds which means either a regular 9-5 or a successful business or both. 

So how will you live your dream life? Through Juju, Vibes & Insha Allah or Planning?

Career planning is the process of spotting your personal strengths and interests, and leveraging them to determine professional opportunities you’ll love, be excellent at, and thrive in.  To plan your career, the necessary steps to take are listed in the sequence below: 

• Introspection: Spend some time reviewing and understanding yourself. Here, you want to understand what your personality type is and what strengths, interests, and needs you have. You also want to take stock of the talents and skills you possess. To do this, you can make a comprehensive list yourself, ask the people closest to you for help, take assessments like the Myer Briggs personality test, aptitude tests, etc and/or speak to a career counselor/coach 

• Research – now that you have a clear picture of who you are, you want to find out the careers that exist for a person with your personality, skills, and knowledge. If you took any of the tests, chances are they’d have listed some of the career opportunities you’ll excel at, so you may want to start your research from there. Otherwise, you could make a list of all the career opportunities that exist and spend some time learning about each of them. You want to discover what working in that field looks like, what the average salary is, the requirements for getting into that profession, and the advancement opportunities that exist 

• Experimentation – after all of your research, you must have narrowed down that list significantly. The next step is to get first-hand experience of each career option. You can get this experience through informational interviews or mentoring sessions with an established person in the field, networking events for the identified fields, job shadowing, volunteering, internships or graduate trainee programs, part-time work, or short courses. Depending on how much time you have on your hands, you can even combine 2 or more of these options 

• Selection – look who’s ready to make a final selection! At this point, you’ve come a long way and you should be proud. You now have a lot of information that you can use to make a final decision. Consider things like work-life balance, pay (of course), the possibility of relocating (for our japa folks), and advancement prospects, then rank your options in order of preference. You can always come back to this list if your desires change or finding a job starts to prove difficult 

• Take action – now you want to work on your CV, cover letter, business registration, license, certification, or whatever else your selected career field requires. Make a note of the blockers you could encounter and how you plan to control them. Create a checklist of the actions you need to take with timelines and check each item off as you move along. Do these for the top 2-3 career options on your preference list from the previous step, so that you’re prepared if your first option doesn’t work out quite as you had hoped 

• Job search and acceptance – It is in this very final step that you spot specific companies and roles you’d like to work in or your target market if you decide to branch out on your own. No more asking recruiters for “any job” (I hear the recruiters thanking me..lol! You’re welcome). Prepare for interviews and be clear on your minimum salary expectations, benefits, preferred job location, and your ideal company culture to avoid “had I known” stories later on. 

These steps, if followed carefully, are guaranteed to set you up for a rewarding and meaningful career. 

The sky is your starting point, lift-off

Culled from https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/career-planning-process

Also Read: 10 websites to find remote work online for Africans in 2022