Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep50: Your corporate career journey in 6 steps.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. Hi everyone, this is Mei Ping and welcome back to a brand new season of My God of Ping, a careers podcast that you should listen to if you are an ambitious corporate professional who is really looking to grow your career.

Starting point is 00:00:41 So in today's very special episode, I want to talk about the six steps in your career journey. So it doesn't matter if you are a fresh graduate, somebody who has worked for three years, five years, 10 years, or even 20 years, these careers, these steps in a career journey would totally make sense for you. nowadays due to the pandemic and obviously you know a lot of challenges in the job market right now i do hear quite a lot of complaints on people commenting that they find it very difficult to find a job and there's been a lot of conversations on job job job job job right which completely understand that is something extremely important but what i've always wondered as a career coach now and as a former hiring manager at an international bank is

Starting point is 00:01:32 wouldn't it make more sense to actually think about your entire career journey and where the job search and where the current job that you have right now or your future job kind of fits into the entire process. So based on the conversations that I've had with a lot of people, be it clients, connections, just network in general, across different levels of seniority, right? One thing I noticed is that a lot of people do their job search or rather due to the lack of planning in their career, they tend to go like backwards. So today I really want to share with you why you should really take note of this six steps career journey and why it needs to be done in this exact order that I will be sharing with you. So if career planning is a very new concept for you,

Starting point is 00:02:26 and you've always wondered why some people struggle and why some people find managing their career so easy, then make sure that you listen to the rest of the episode. So now, one of the biggest challenges I see in a lot of corporate professionals is the fact that they don't always think about their career in the next couple of years. So a lot of times career planning doesn't happen because we are very focused on the short term and the short term normally means I need a job. So what that six steps will cover is just to give you a very quick overview. Step one, career direction. Step two, resume, updating your resume. Of course your LinkedIn profile if it's an online version of your resume. Step three, job search strategy. Step four, interview skills, step five, workplace soft skills, and step six, career growth.

Starting point is 00:03:29 So if right now it sounds a little bit jumbled, don't worry about it. I'll actually go through each and every one of the steps so that you actually understand why it needs to be in this exact order and why each step needs, why I guess step two needs two needs you know step one needs to be done before step two two before three and so forth so a lot of people struggle in their career is because in this career journey in their career journey they go about this whole thing backwards so if you are struggling to find a job it's not just about the job most of the time the root cause comes to the fact comes down to the fact that you may not be really clear on what you are actually looking for so if you're just randomly applying for like various jobs and you know just just, I guess, just applying, right? Then how do you know if you have found what you

Starting point is 00:04:26 are looking for? If you have no idea what you were actually looking for in the first place. So it can be a little bit challenging. And this actually will result in a lot of resignations and a lot of unhappiness just a couple of months into the job, right? Which then creates another vicious cycle and it's not really a good idea if let's say you really care about having a long-term career and not just, you know, a short-term job. Okay, so let's actually talk about step one and step one is something that is always, always overlooked and that is actually identifying your career interest and direction. So in terms of career interest, what do you actually want to do? So it's not about, hey, you know, I need a job, I need a job, I need a job, but okay, in an ideal world, right, if you could

Starting point is 00:05:18 actually choose, what kind of job do you want? What kind of industry would be ideal for you? What kind of departments do you want to work in? What kind of companies? What's the size of the company? It's really important to be able to narrow down what you're looking for. Because if you cannot narrow it down, it's's same like you know it's similar like the analogy of you starting to drive a car but you don't really know where you're going right so you may be putting in a lot of effort trying to find something but where where is this destination somebody told me last week that uh oh mipin you shouldn't be talking about the destination because i've been

Starting point is 00:06:05 told that the journey matters than matters more than the destination that was actually a very interesting thing um i've been told and i thought it was very interesting however yes the journey does matter right it's the process of getting there not always the destination but if if your journey is in a mess right it's even worse not only the fact that you're not going to actually get anywhere but you might be even very be frustrated along the process as well so first step is actually being able to clarify what are your career interests and really what is the direction that you're actually looking for and in fact most of the clients when they start working with me we do spend quite a lot of time on career direction, because if that one is not clear, it doesn't matter, right? What are the

Starting point is 00:06:49 trainings or like strategy or coaching that I give you, because you will always be searching in the dark. You will always be searching with like a blindfold and that doesn't always work. Okay. So now, now that you have clarity on what you're looking for, and you know, an industry or a kind of company that you want to join, then only we move to step two. So step two really is about resume update. So right now you are ready to update your resume because you already know what you're looking for. So the purpose of a resume is to position yourself as the best candidate for that job. So again, if you didn't do step one, you wouldn't even know what job you're looking for.

Starting point is 00:07:31 And most people's resume, unfortunately, is very, very vague. And when I read it, most of the time, I don't really know what they can contribute. I don't really know what they can do. The achievements and values are really unclear to me. And most of the time, when I see a resume, within seconds, I can tell whether this person is clear or not clear on what he or she can contribute. And that is something that a lot of hiring managers can do as well, because that's pretty much what they are trained to do. So always make sure that you only are updating your resume

Starting point is 00:08:06 after you have clarified what you are looking for, right? Then resume is what I call the offline version because not that many people see it and you only submit it if you're seriously applying for a job. But your LinkedIn profile is the online version of that resume. So update your LinkedIn profile is the online version of that resume. So update your LinkedIn profile with clarity, not just update for the sake of updating. And this is something that I tell my participants in all my LinkedIn webinars and all my LinkedIn talks, because if you're just updating your profile for the sake of updating, then you're

Starting point is 00:08:41 not really going to achieve anything from a career standpoint. I mean, it's probably good enough, right enough right you know as a social networking platform but it's not going to make you discoverable to a lot of recruiters so just make sure you you take note on that okay now with your resume really position yourself everything is really good then now you are ready to finally search for a job because you have clarity on what you're looking for. You're clear on your interests. And now you're armed with a resume that clearly articulates why, why you should be chosen, right? Why you should be considered as the best candidate. So in terms of like job search strategy, there are obviously a lot of methods, some traditional, some a little bit more modern. But what I would recommend is um to actually do your job search on linkedin itself so nowadays linkedin is a little

Starting point is 00:09:30 bit of a social networking platform but a platform for actually looking for career opportunities it is an excellent one if you actually know what you're doing so personally for me i've um i've gotten interviews with like google paypal and all these roles are pretty much headhunted. I never really applied for them, but I was found on the platform. And even the roles that I, companies that I eventually joined, like Visa, Standard Chartered, and so forth, I was also headhunted on LinkedIn. So it's something that you can consider if you're a little bit more open to more modern job search techniques and obviously how you engage and all those things that will all play into account. The detailed step-by-step guide is something that I will teach in my training separately.

Starting point is 00:10:15 But what I'm trying to say here is that aside from the traditional methods of looking for a job, always be open to new methods, particularly on LinkedIn. That has proven very effective for me because i've been on this platform since 2012 so it's been a very very long time so now assuming that your job search strategy goes really well you would have received calls for interviews right so that's step four about making sure that you have very good interview skills so a lot of times when clients come to me and they tell me that hey you know i i've gotten interviews but i'm very nervous or i've gotten to so many interviews but i've never been able to get the job so most of the time right when i do my mock interview and interview preparations with my coaching clients what i tend to notice is that they feel nervous

Starting point is 00:11:09 is because it actually then actually goes back to their resume. So most of the time their resume is very vague. It's not clear. They themselves don't know what they bring to the table. And then now let's add on another element called interview, right? So now they have to actually express it in front of the hiring manager or HR, which actually creates a lot more stress.

Starting point is 00:11:30 So in such situations, actually what I would recommend to most of my clients is really make sure that you go back to step two and relook how you are articulating and updating your resume. Because a lot of my clients, when I train them on interview preparation and mock interview, we use the resume as the base document and then really expand from there. So I'm not going to comment on how other coaches and trainers teach interview coaching. But what I teach is what I've personally done for myself. And I have always, always been very successful in interviews and in fact for clients who come to me

Starting point is 00:12:10 after going to other okay rather maybe I'll say this um other get after getting other advice my method works because I was a former hiring manager so I know what hiring managers are looking for and I've always interviewed very well So if you're struggling with your interview, what I would suggest is that go back to step two and really have a detailed look at your resume and articulate your resume in a way that you're going to interview. And then practice from there. That is really the most efficient method.

Starting point is 00:12:41 Okay, now, assuming that you interview really well and now you've gotten a job. and now you've gotten a job so after you've gotten a job then getting a job is one thing right keeping that job and staying in that job and doing well in that job is something else so to me the moment that you get into the job that is just really the first step is the first step of your future success. So what you don't want is to go into a job, struggle, and then leave every 6 to 12 months because it will have a significantly negative impact on your career.

Starting point is 00:13:15 So what you want to do, the moment you join the company, your new company, or maybe your first job, is to make sure that you proactively improve and put in effort to improve your industry knowledge, the way that the company works and most importantly, the soft skills needed, not just in this company to excel in this company, but also to excel along your career. So what I would normally suggest is what I call my top 12 skills for career success. And that's something that I have put together after spending so many years in the corporate world. So I can't list all of them here. But just to give you a very quick idea, some of the most important skills, I think

Starting point is 00:13:57 that a person should continue to develop. And I don't mean just enhance it bit by bit but probably eventually reach a mastery level depending on how ambitious you are it's around communication, EQ, leadership, getting along with people, managing bosses expectation, you know creating win-win relationships, right adaptability, productivity, all those things so it's not just one skill but it's actually a combination of multiple skills that will then determine how how far you can go because if you only focus on one or two skills then imagine it's like you're on a boat right you're a boat but your boat has a lot of holes so how far can you go if let's say your boat is leaking right so how i see is like the 12 skills are pretty much the fundamental thing that will then patch the holes in your boat

Starting point is 00:14:53 so that you can go faster and much further as well so always make sure that you know even though the job may or may not work out but the purpose of you in that job is to learn as many skills as possible, be it on the industry, technical skills, or even soft skills. And these are some of the things that you will be able to bring to your next job. Okay, now finally, if you're an ambitious professional, one of the things that you must not ever forget is to make sure that you are thinking about your career growth at least once a year. I would normally recommend thinking about it every quarter and I do do quarterly check-ins

Starting point is 00:15:32 and accountability sessions with my clients just to make sure that they don't forget what they actually want to achieve in this performance year. So the step six is what I call, it's just, it's career growth. And it's really up to you to define what career growth looks like for you. So for some people, they may see as a promotion, some people may see it as a, maybe just additional responsibilities. Some people do, do have different expectations as well, depending on kind of like where you are in your career, and what's priority in your life as well. always remember at least once a year i would recommend three months but i would say at a minimum once a year just really spend a little bit of time sit down and ask yourself what do you want to achieve in this year are you on track to developing the knowledge

Starting point is 00:16:22 developing the skills and maybe and i guess finally ask yourself is your career moving in the right direction because this is really the time for you to really think about your yeah as a level i guess for lack of a better word career planning right because if you don't think about it and you're always you know caught up in the busyness of it all it's going to be very challenging and you may eventually regret after many years and you feel stuck and you know what you will feel frustrated so my advice in today's today's podcast episode is to always think about the entire journey the end to end of the journey and not just get caught in one single step. So just see how all these things actually fit holistically when you think about your career. And this will

Starting point is 00:17:12 actually allow you to go a much longer way because you're always focused on the big picture. So stay focused on the big picture. And till then, I'll see you in the next episode.

Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep50: Your corporate career journey in 6 steps.

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