A Discussion on Reaching Career Goals and Successful Job Search

Everyone has their dream career. However, very few people appreciate the need to plan how to land in their dream careers. In a bid to help students align with their future careers, most institutions as well as other third parties have set up career centers. Taking University of California career center for instance, numerous resources are available.There are student internships. Internship are imperative in career planning as it helps a student know what is expected of them. There is also career fairs and workshop for students that help them identify and get to know other people in their dream careers thereby borrowing mentorship from them. Moreover, the center has career planning resource that helps students plan their own career path. Lastly, the career center offers job search strategies such using job search agencies.

The person am supporting as he creates a career plan is a high school friend currently pursuing an associate degree. His dream is to become a renowned IT consultant in line with the current associate degree he is pursuing. During these exercise, I will have him undertake career planning and undertake an internship in his choice of choice. Moreover, the student will develop a strategic leadership plan that will help them achieve their dream career.

According to the person, they are always motivated by the need to solve information technology related technology problems (Mumford, 2000). As such, they have been able to solve numerous business information technology problems for small businesses while on an internship. As such, he has amassed great deal of knowledge in the business information technology filed. Moreover, they love developing intelligent problems that are easy to use as well as affordable. With regard to personal attributes, they believe they have four main attributes that align them with a successful IT career. First, he is adaptable. As such, he can be able to develop and offer information technology solutions in wide variety of fields including well established businesses as well as organizations. Secondly, the individual is facilitative. Accordingly, he can closely work with other experts in the organization and be of use much to help them. Being result-oriented is another attribute characteristic of them. As such, the organization will be poised to get results as a result of hiring his services. Moreover, the person is open minded making him be able to work in competitive environment without losing morale. Lastly, the person is proactive making him flexible as to fit in diverse type of working conditions.

Moreover, as his family and friends point out, he has numerous strengths as well as weaknesses. Among his strengths is the ability to pursue his targets with utmost resilience until he achieve it. Moreover, they consider his great depth of understanding as another strength that would facilitate his success in career. Moreover, they regard him as having a high level of self-esteem making easy for him to him to sell his ideas without fear of being let down. Lastly, they consider him to be self-disciplined a trait imperative in career (Mumford, 2000).

Lastly, there are four things he is looking for in a job. Frist, the job need to expose him to wide range of Information technology problems. Resultantly, he will be able to grow his skills in field thereby poising him for huge tasks in the future. Secondly, the job should help him grow his leadership skill as his ultimate goal is to be a CEO of a leading IT firms in the world. Moreover, he would like to have global impact in the filed thereby needing a job that offers intercontinental work. Moreover, the job should come with an awarding salary. The job should be able to supply his lifestyle preferences such as holiday travels as well as international tours to the Jungles of Africa. Lastly, the job should enable him to grow his interpersonal skills such as interacting with other people, making new friends as well as learning how to communicate his ideas effectively.

There three main strengths that he would take to an organization that would hire his services. First, he would bring new IT problem solving skills accumulated while working with an organization that was helping medium-size an small businesses adopt information technology in their operations. During the placement, he was active in designing point of sale software, data analysissoftware’s to help the businesses make data driven decisions, and data mining and warehousing tools to help stores study their customer behaviors. Consequently, the businesses had their return on sales as they were able to capture their customer spending behaviors and consequently make necessary adjustments in their operations. Strategic leadership is the second strength that he would bring to an organization that hires him. During the course of his degree, he has attended leadership classes that has enable him not just be a leader, but a strategic leader. While working as an intern, he was appointed to lead other member of the developing team in his parts. Consequently, he was able to accumulate leadership strategies like recognizing people for their efforts and forwarding them to supervisors for proper rewarding. Moreover, while in campus, he has been the leader of Christian union putting him at the center of managing different teams and enhancing harmonious working relations between the teams As such, he has wide range of skills that poises him to bring the company new leadership skills. Lastly, excellent communication skills is another skill that it would get by hiring him to be one of its employees. While working to develop solutions for small and medium-size businesses while as an intern, he was able to communicate with numerous customers while selling the ideas to them. As such, he was able to master the art of communicating with different kind of people. Consequently, while working for an organization as an IT expert or consultant, he will be able to use his communication skills to persuade board of directors and shareholders adopt certain IT solutions for the businesses regardless of the cost of adoption.

By using personal reflection and personal career professional assessment it will be possible for him to define his career path (Hughes, 2005). A leadership development plan is imperative as it will help him access where he is currently in his move to becoming a professional IT consultant. Moreover, a leadership development plan will also help him define where he would like to like to be a given time frame. As such, adopting a strategic leadership development plan would help him achieve his career goals (Hughes, 2005). The leadership plan would have the following areas invaluable in personal development.

To grow in Information technology arena to warrant quality services to both his employer as well as his clients when he will be practicing as a consultant. Consequently, he intends to pursue relevant and competitive education in IT filed up to post doctorial level.

His vison is to establish his own IT firm in the future geared towards offering quality and affordable services to clients.

With regard to strategic leadership, the person should exhibit high levels of loyalty (9/10). As such, he be able to demonstrate loyalty to the organizations visions in their actions.Secondly, he has should always keep himself updated with current trend in the areas that concern him (10/10). Given the dynamic nature of Information technology, he need to appreciate the need to remain updated in new dimensions that information technology is taking. Such have been possible by his endeavors of leading technological journals as well as blogs. Moreover, the individual should exhibit judicious use of power (8/10). As such, he will be able to develop his ideas rather than forcing his ideas upon others. As such, he usually adopts a gradual approach in pushing for his ideas. Moreover, he should adopt a wider perspective (9/10). As such, he should not have skills in his narrow specialty but has different skills in wide range of fields. Accordingly, apart from his adept IT skills, he has great deal knowledge in financial analysis skills gained from his certified financial analyst obtained after completing third grade. Moreover, in the context of leadership, he has both theoretical and practical knowledge gained from class and field. However, with regard to self-awareness, the person should evaluate whether he is doing well (7/10). Sometimes he should understand his own emotions thereby the need to improve on that if he is to become a strategic leader in IT field. Lastly, with regard to social skillshe should aim for higher levels to be a strategic leader (6/10). Due to taking a lot of time in front of his laptop coding, he has not spent enough time making new friends, therefore, to be a strategic leader, he intends to allocate more time to indulge in social activities where he can learn how to socialize.

Moreover, in journey to realizing his career goals, understanding his cognitive biases is also imperative. Cognitive biases are systematic errors inherent in our decision making thereby making us to deviate from the standard of rational judgement. First, the person should not exhibit backfire effect (2/10). As such, he need to avoid the tendency to reject evidence that contradicts his point of view despite knowing that it is the plain truth. Such tendency attributes to wrong upbringing that may make him develop some inferiority complex that makes him feel inferior when he people prove him wrong. However, to overcome the cognitive bias, he plans to participate in competitions where he can learn that some people are better than him. Moreover, he should avoid exhibiting availability heuristic (1/10). Consequently, he will have low tendency to overestimate the importance of information he has with him. Such overestimation makes it possible to argue smoking is not unhealthy as his grandfather lived to a hundred years and was a smoker. Lastly, he should not exhibit choice-supportive bias (4/10). Such bias willmake him think of things as positive once he has chosen them without undertaking research to support his choices (Lenz, 2005). As such, to become a leader in IT filed, he need to adopt an open and research backed approach to choices.

To realize one’s goal in life, understanding the key stakeholders is key for success. Everyone has numerous people in live whom he needs to have as they offer encouragement in low times as well as offer happiness necessary to clearly pursue one’s goals. As such, my friend has identified his stakeholders and the expectations they have on him.