SEE THE FUTURE

                 

 

 

Thinking About a New Career? Explore Your Options

Career exploration is the second stage of the career planning process. You will begin to explore careers after completing the first stage of the career planning process, self assessment. During that stage you took inventory of your values, interests, personality and skills. You should have come away from the self assessment stage with a list of careers that are appropriate for you based on what you found out about yourself. Now it's time to learn about the careers on your list so you can begin to make that list shorter. Your goal is to eventually narrow it down to the one career you want to pursue. Try not to eliminate any career from your list until you do, at least, a little bit of research about it. Even if you think you know about an occupation, you may be surprised by what you learn.

Start With the Basics

At first you will just want to gather some basic information about each career on your list. Let's assume you have a list of ten occupations. You can do some preliminary research which will allow you to narrow down your list before you do more in depth research. When exploring careers you will need basic information such as job descriptions, employment statistics, job outlook, earnings and educational and training requirements. For basic information, use these resources:

• Career Briefs
• Careers By Field
• Additional Career Information Resources

After reading up on the careers on your list you will find that several of them don't appeal to you. For example, you may decide that you wouldn't enjoy the job duties of a particular career or that you can't (or choose not to) meet its requirements. The earnings may be lower than you thought or its outlook doesn't look promising. In the end, you will be left with a list with no more than about three careers on it.

Delve Deeper

After you narrow down your list of career choices your research will become more involved. You will want to learn what working in the field is really like, at least as much as you can without actually working in it. The best way to do this is to talk to people who do.

1. Utilize your network to compile a list of people who work in your field or fields of interest.
2. Set up informational interviews with them.
3. See if any of your contacts are willing to let you follow him or her around at work for a day.

After your in depth research, you should be able to determine which career is a good match for you. Try not to get frustrated if, at this point, you can't make a decision. Continue to do more research until you can comfortably make a decision.

Goals or objectives development

The career management process begins with setting goals/objectives. A relatively specific goal/objective must be formulated. This task may be quite difficult when the individual lacks knowledge of career opportunities and/or is not fully aware of their talents and abilities. However, the entire career management process is based on the establishment of defined goals/objectives whether specific or general in nature. Utilizing career assessments may be a critical step in identifying opportunities and career paths that most resonate with someone. Career assessments can range from quick and informal like those on CareerBuilder or may be more indepth like those such as Myers-Briggs and CareerLeader supported assessments found on MyPath. Regardless of the ones you use, you will need to evaluate them. Most assessments found today for free (although good) do not offer an in-depth evaluation.
The time horizon for the achievement of the selected goals or objectives - short term, medium term or long term - will have a major influence on their formulation.

1. Short term goals (one or two years) are usually specific and limited in scope. Short term goals are easier to formulate. Make sure they are achievable and relate to your longer term career goals.
2. Intermediate goals (3 to 5 years) tend to be less specific and more open ended than short term goals. Both intermediate and long term goals are more difficult to formulate than short term goals because there are so many unknowns about the future.
3. Long term goals (more than 5 years), of course, are the most fluid of all. Lack of life experience and knowledge about potential opportunities and pitfalls make the formulation of long term goals/objectives very difficult. Long range goals/objectives, however, may be easily modified as additional information is received without a great loss of career efforts because of experience/knowledge transfer from one career to another.
4. Making career choices and decisions – the traditional focus of careers interventions. The changed nature of work means that individuals may now have to revisit this process more frequently now and in the future, more than in the past.
5. Managing the organizational career – concerns the career management tasks of individuals within the workplace, such as decision-making, life-stage transitions, dealing with stress etc.
6. Managing 'boundaryless' careers – refers to skills needed by workers whose employment is beyond the boundaries of a single organisation, a workstyle common among, for example, artists and designers.
7. Taking control of one's personal development – as employers take less responsibility, employees need to take control of their own development in order to maintain and enhance their employability.

M. Rometty elected IBM president and CEO

Virginia M. Rometty elected IBM president
and CEO

Samuel J. Palmisano continues as chairman

Armonk, NY, October 25, 2011 - The IBM board of directors has elected Virginia M. Rometty president and chief executive officer of the company, effective January 1, 2012. She was also elected a member of the board of directors, effective at that time. Ms. Rometty is currently IBM senior vice president and group executive for sales, marketing and strategy. She succeeds Samuel J. Palmisano, who currently is IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer. Mr. Palmisano will remain chairman of the board.
"Ginni Rometty has successfully led several of IBM's most important businesses over the past decade—from the formation of IBM Global Business Services to the build-out of our Growth Markets Unit," Mr. Palmisano said. "But she is more than a superb operational executive. With every leadership role, she has strengthened our ability to integrate IBM's capabilities for our clients. She has spurred us to keep pace with the needs and aspirations of our clients by deepening our expertise and industry knowledge. Ginni's long-term strategic thinking and client focus are seen in our growth initiatives, from cloud computing and analytics to the commercialization of Watson. She brings to the role of CEO a unique combination of vision, client focus, unrelenting drive, and passion for IBMers and the company's future. I know the board agrees with me that Ginni is the ideal CEO to lead IBM into its second century."
Ms. Rometty said: "There is no greater privilege in business than to be asked to lead IBM, especially at this moment. Sam had the courage to transform the company based on his belief that computing technology, our industry, even world economies would shift in historic ways. All of that has come to pass. Today, IBM's strategies and business model are correct. Our ability to execute and deliver consistent results for clients and shareholders is strong. This is due to Sam's leadership, his discipline, and his unshakable belief in the ability of IBM and IBMers to lead into the future. Sam taught us, above all, that we must never stop reinventing IBM."
Mr. Palmisano, 60, became IBM chief executive officer in 2002 and chairman of the board in 2003. During his tenure, IBM exited commoditizing businesses, including PCs, printers and hard disk drives, and greatly increased investments in high-value businesses and technologies. He has overseen the significant expansion of IBM in the emerging markets of China, India, Brazil, Russia and dozens of other developing countries, transforming IBM from a multinational into a globally integrated enterprise. In 2008, he launched IBM's Smarter Planet strategy, which describes the company's view of the next era of information technology and its impact on business and society.
Since Mr. Palmisano became CEO, IBM has set records in pre-tax earnings, earnings per share, and free cash flow. During Mr. Palmisano's tenure, IBM increased EPS by almost five times, generated over $100 billion in free cash flow, and invested more than $50 billion in research and development—creating over $100 billion of shareholder value since 2002 through an increase in market capitalization and dividends paid.
As global sales leader for IBM, Ms. Rometty, 54, is accountable for revenue, profit, and client satisfaction in the 170 global markets in which IBM does business. She is responsible for IBM's worldwide results, which exceeded $99 billion in 2010. She also is responsible for leading IBM's global strategy, marketing and communications functions. Previously, Ms. Rometty was senior vice president of IBM Global Business Services. In that role, she led the successful integration of PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting—the largest acquisition in professional services history, building a global team of more than 100,000 business consultants and services experts. She has also served as general manager of IBM Global Services, Americas, and of IBM's Global Insurance and Financial Services Sector.
Ms. Rometty joined IBM in 1981 as a systems engineer. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree with high honors in computer science and electrical engineering from Northwestern University.

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