About Career Awareness
It is important for everyone to like the job they do. This fact will increase your chances of achieving success in your professional life.
A successful career does not come about by accident but is the result of targeted decisions and planning. How the path in your own professional career can look like – only a few think about it seriously. Career Awareness draws attention precisely to these important questions, possible obstacles, but also opportunities and important nodes in your own career. With the necessary career awareness, there are some advantages, but first, you have to invest time and work to increase your career awareness.
How can you build and develop your career awareness?
1. Inform yourself extensively
The first step to improve career awareness is extensive research and information about the job and the industry. Which tasks are particularly important? Which responsibilities are in the foreground? What are your expectations? Which skills are in particular demand? What trends and developments does your employer go through and what is currently happening in your industry? You can only develop career awareness through in-depth knowledge of your work.
A look into the future is also important. Think about the difficulties you or your profession may face. Can work change fundamentally, for example, due to new technologies? What does this mean for you and how can you deal with it?
2. Know your goals
Career awareness also means that you have to deal with your own goals and ideas. The specific question here is: How do you imagine your career? Develop a clear idea of how you want to shape your career and where it should lead.
3. Develop yourself further
The labor market is changing very dynamically. Today there are no professions that will be on the market in a few years. So how do you prepare to work for the rest of your life? Just keep learning properly, develop your passions and interests, read books, go to museums, travel, and meet friends.
4. Reflect regularly
Analyze the status quo and ask yourself: Is my career currently heading in the right direction? It is easy to lose sight of goals or to be pushed in a different way in everyday professional life.
The regular reflection serves as a checkpoint as to whether you have strayed from the intended path. If this is the case, you can refocus on the goal.
But it may also be that your goals have changed. Priorities and desires do not have to remain constant over the years. You should therefore also regularly check whether your ideas about your career are still identical. If not, start setting a new goal.
Related articles:
Does volunteering improve employability?
The importance of emotional intelligence
