Your job & you

Being a teenager I guess you must be equally curious about your job or a ‘Dream Job’ to be more appropriate as I was 20 years ago. Now as I write this article with a sound background of working in the corporate world for over 15 years, I consider it as my moral responsibility to share with you my experience and lessons learnt during this long journey.
The first and foremost thing to do is to define your priorities with utmost clarity so as to make the right choices. For example, why do you want to work for a particular organization? What career prospects do you have there? Is the industry that you want to work in stagnant or growing? What are your personal financial priorities? You will need to answer an exhaustive list of such questions before you decide to take up a job in any company. If meeting your financial obligations is your top priority, then you can join any company which has a decent reputation in the market and pays an equally decent salary.
Once you join an organization, you need to look for the learning opportunities that are available there. Make your best efforts to get into every minute detail of the tasks and responsibilities assigned to you so as to gain expertise and be the one who can be looked upon as dependable. Once you have proved your worth to the organization, it becomes your rightful wish to ask for more responsibilities, higher pay and a suitable designation. Now here comes the grey area which has to be looked upon very cautiously. Don’t get carried away with fancy designations, because whatever your designation, your worth in the market will always depend on what kind of responsibilities you handle. Your prospective employers will always be interested in your detailed job profile rather than your designation.
Now as far as growth in the organization is concerned, there is either vertical or horizontal growth. Vertical growth is about moving up in the hierarchy and horizontal growth is about getting a higher pay package. Time and again you will have to weigh your options against each other before you seek vertical or horizontal growth.
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Deven Randive is a Consulting Psychotherapist and is passionate about helping people realize their personal and professional goals by way of counselling and various psychotherapeutic techniques. You can reach him at drandive@gmail.com