Taking the Long View Approach to Information Technology Career Planning
An organization’s success depends on its people. The stronger the knowledge and skills of the individuals the stronger the organization becomes. The United States economic downturn has caused some companies to downsize—which is creating a paradigm shift in the way people manage their careers and their jobs. Organizations are no longer as willing to provide the necessary funding to individuals for career and skills development.
Economic changes are inevitable and without the necessary skills individuals will lack the career edge they require to survive in this current job market. You must first be able to recognize the driving forces creating change in our economy to quickly adapt and create a career edge. A classic mistake is for an individual to think about only one career path at a time leaving themselves to the whims of the companies who are downsizing.
Individuals are now forced to take a new view at how they are managing their careers and create new career paths to broaden career choices. During this time of unprecedented economic transformation organizations must now evolve in order to do business and adapt. The importance of flexibility and adaptability expand down to the individual level and in order to quickly adapt you must first learn to manage change and your career.
Change is the law of life and those who look to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
~~John F Kennedy
You do not want to set yourself off on the wrong path—or you might find yourself left with no career options. You must create forward-thinking ways to transform your approach to career development and avoid a career disaster through taking the long view approach to career planning. The long view approach incorporates future change by projecting current economic, political, and technological drivers into futures scenarios. This has been called strategic planning, scenario planning, and strategic flow charting. These same principles can be applied to career planning. This is not a short term investment—but an investment that will help you stay ahead of paradigm shifts by recognizing the drivers of change before they happen and quickly chart a new course for your career path.
To begin you must first look for drivers of change in the organizational landscape of your company. Then research and list all of these changes you see coming in career trends. My career path research found a recent article in Money Magazine—which listed Information Security as the 10th fastest growing profession in the United States with a projected growth of 27 percent between the year 2006 and 2016. I also located an article in Government Information Security News that outlines an effort by the office of personnel management (OPM) to retain and hire Information Security experts.
In addition, Information technology is also one of the stronger careers with less unemployment rates than the national average. A recent quarterly report by Robert Half Technology IT hiring Index and Skills report states that 83% of companies plan to maintain their current IT staffing levels.
The second step in the planning process is to use your creative energy to determine risks and develop new ideas, and career options. By determining the risks, you can start building a what-if flow chart of outcomes. Taking a calculated risk can advance your career; however, if you fear the unknown you can gain confidence by simply evaluating the evidence concerning future outcomes. If any of these outcomes look positive start testing some your ideas. These are all risk-taking strategies that will work but not without certain amount of strategic planning.
Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.
~~George S Patton
Finally after you have chosen your new career path, continue to strengthen your position by face-to-face networking, and personal branding.
Taking the long view will allow you to proactively manage your career. Remember that your career must be re-evaluated based on driving forces and quickly evolve based on current and future career trends. To succeed you must be the one leading career change and not just getting caught up in it.
CopyRight Patricia Moulder
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Article Tags:
information technology
,information security
,career planning
,personal branding
,professional networking
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