The importance of making a right career decision

Every individual looks forward to achieving a larger purpose and finding meaning in life. For most people, this happens via their work. Work plays a primary role and is a core part of one's identity.

An average person spends about 100,000 hours of work during their lifetime. That's a significant part (more than one-third) of one's life. Yet, for most people, it is not as though they find their life calling early on in their childhood or even when they graduate. Years ago, most people would probably imagine starting somewhere lower on the hierarchy and moving upwards towards senior-level positions as they get more years of experience almost in a straight linear path. They were okay to make slow, incremental progress over the years. There were hardly any choices, and most people would join a large company.

However, fast forward to now, and the choices are aplenty. They can now choose between large conglomerates versus high growth startups and small enterprises. The definitions of what constitutes success are changing. For most people, it is now about creating an impact, and the size and relevance of that impact on the organization's growth charge them with even more initiative and excitement.

They would prefer not to act as shadows, hiding or almost invisible amongst lacs of people. The pandemic has made people realize that everyone's time is limited, and uncertainty is the only certainty. They would like to take on roles that help them play at the forefront, be visible to stakeholders making a clear, significant impact on the outcomes. They would like to fail fast and learn from their failures. They would, of course, like to have the flexibility to work from anywhere and get paid well.

Making a career decision based on this growth objective means choosing companies and jobs that give them the freedom that comes with taking responsibility. Startups, for example, have seen benefit from this, as they can better attract this new breed of energetic talent because of having a structure that encourages this accelerated growth path.

That way, one could determine one's areas of interest while simultaneously learning and significantly contributing. Over a period, the same experiences could be executed at a much larger scale, working with larger and more complex teams.

An essential ingredient of ensuring success in one's career is continuously investing in building skills and knowledge. Such skills can be built both via constant learning and consciously choosing workplaces that provide opportunities for superior experiences. Take the example of two people, both with seven years' experience – let's name them Ash and Bella. Ash joined a startup early on in her career and was exposed to complex client requirements and challenges on several occasions right from the early stages. On the other hand, Bella joined a huge company almost simultaneously, but it took Bella close to six years before she was directly deployed in front of a client.

Whose career has a better chance of progressing faster? All other things are equal, obviously, Ash, as she can now use the significant learnings from all those challenging experiences to deliver something far more meaningful. Making a deliberate choice in favor of joining a workplace that exposes individuals to these experiences is almost imperative to one's career growth. While this may be uncomfortable at first (going out of your comfort zone is never easy for anyone), this is probably a significant factor differentiating slow career progress from fast-track progress.

One of the reasons people don't prefer to put themselves in uncomfortable settings is the fear of failure. Working on oneself to keep an open and growth-oriented mindset requires constantly working on confronting and getting past these fears. One of the ways to do this effectively would also be to build networks with various professionals and continuously engage with them to make a wide variety of perspectives. As they say, successful people are not gifted; they work hard and succeed on purpose.

A career requires time and effort, and there are no shortcuts to this one. For some people, it takes a lifetime, and for some others, it comes in much earlier due to their deliberate hard work, planning, preparation and moving out of their comfort zones. Tracking one career journey to its path of success is a responsibility for us to take. Building a personal brand where one has grown via learnings and experiences, built strong mentors and networks, and delivered superior outcomes is what gives true satisfaction.

(The author is the Founder, Director – Avaali Solutions Pvt Ltd.)