Career development
Every year, I have received many emails from graduated students asking advices on their careers. There are some misinformations about career development that need to be dispelled so I summarized a few to share with you:
Question: “I have been told that do a good job, work hard and the company will "take care of you", is it true or not?
Answer: This is NOT true. In reality no one will take care of you except when you are young and your parents care for you. Now as an adult, you must take care of yourself. Do an outstanding job, better than anyone else. Learn new skills better than anyone else then you do NOT have to worry about anything. You must have confident that you can go anywhere; do anything because you have the knowledge and the skills. The story of companies providing support to employees is only happened in “Business books” written by Academic people who never work in industry.
Question: “People advice me to socialize more with important people because it’s not what you know, but whom you know will help you achieve success”.
Answer: This is NOT true. What you know is everything because it is what you have and nobody can take it from you. You knowledge and your skills are your assets and people respect you based on what you know. Whom you know and what they know about you only help. In my opinion, what you can do and what you can accomplish are the key to your success.
Question: “My manager told me that he will help me with my future as long as I work hard and do whatever he say. What do you think?”
Answer: “Why do you need someone take care of your future for you? Your manager is NOT your father and his job is to lead. He doesn’t have time, skill, ability or motivation to take care of your career or your future. Your manager could be a mentor and role model (good or bad) and could support you in your job. Only you know what you want in life and what you are willing to work hard to get it.
Question: What do you think about the advice: “Managers do not care about job performance but your salary and raise depend on what they like you or not. It is important to “please the manager” then everything will be fine”
Answer: That is BAD advice. Most managers do care about job performance very much because your performance reflects in their performance closely. It may be the only thing they care about you whether they like you or not. Do a good job, keep a good attitude and always learn new skills then good things could happen because your manager needs people like you. It is the mutual need and respect, it is NOT about like or dislike in professional environment.
Question: My friend told me that I can only get ahead if I work in the "high visibility" area so important people know who I am. Please advice.
Answer: Actually, it might or might not help you to work in such “High visibility” area. If you do a good job and have strong leadership skill then it may help but if for whatever reason, you make a mistake then it is also highly visible too. If your skills are better matched to another area, you could have better chance of success there.
Question: My friend told me he would rather be lucky than good. In life luck is everything and we need a lot of luck in this career. Is luck that important?
Answer: “Keep a positive attitude and be excellent in everything you do. Luck is important sometime, but your performance is the best thing you can control. Result is important in your career and you can get results by doing a good job.
Question: Please let me know the career path that I need to be on to reach my goal.
Answer: Sorry, there is no explicit career path or magic formula for everybody. Career is a personal thing depends on each individual. There is a general career for programmer moving to developer then to several paths such as project manager, system architect and so on but it is your choice and you must select which path is best for you to reach YOUR goal.
Question: “I like technical works and want to make a career to stay in this field for a long time, is it the right choice?
Answer: “Many graduating engineers are hired into a company, placed into a technology group, grow in the group and want to make a life-long career of this narrow area. This is similar to a Ph.D. graduate who wants to make a career out of his or her narrow thesis topic without learning anything new. The reality is that today’s engineering problems are wide open and very diverse. While being a strong in technical in a narrow specialty can be very good and may be right for you, it is usually wiser first to look around and seek diverse assignments. You are still very young, you need to broaden your experience and become more valuable. Stretch yourself wide and grow then, if you choose to specialize in a field, you will be much better. Do not lock yourself into anything early. It is good that you are enjoying technical works but you may have more fun through diversity. You’ll see the bigger picture.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
