Friday, January 6, 2012

Career Exploration


If you are interested in continuing in your current job while you investigate possibilities within the organization, you can:
- Study the organization chart to learn more about how the organization is structured. Identify an area you would like to learn more about and connect with someone who could provide more information about that area.
- Brainstorm with your manager and identify assignments that would give you a realistic view of another part of the organization. Select one assignment and make an action plan for it.
- Identify a job within the organization that you would like to know more about and connect with someone who is currently doing that job to know more about the responsibilities involved.
- Talk with your manager about the possibility of a short-term assignment in another part of the organization.
- Select a department that you are interested in knowing more about.
- Scan the organization's intranet to learn more about other departments.
- Conduct an informational interview with a leader within your department to learn more about the strategic direction and the critical skills and knowledge required in the next few years. Selct one of the identified skills to work on and add to you development plan.
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Wednesday, January 4, 2012






Happy New Year! I have not been blogging for ages now but hope to be more prolific in 2012:) In this New Year I'm sure most of us are definitely looking forward to career growth. After all the end of a year makes us introspect on the year gone by and where we are in our career. Preparation is critical in career planning and it is important to identify the career transitions one wants to make. Some people may be looking at enrichment, that is, they are interested in growing and developing in their current job. To prepare for enrichment, one could look at:



  • Identify 1-2 assignments or tasks that could be added to your current role for greater satisfaction or to expand your role. You can set up a meeting with your manager to discuss this in greater detail.

  • Identify a task or project that you can handle with minimum supervision to add greater independence to your job. Come up with the action plan and discuss it with your manager.

  • Identify a process improvement or a challenging problem that would give you a new learning opportunity. Volunteer to lead the effort.

  • Find ways to nurture creativity in your job. Select a project or assignment that will enable you to contribute your best ideas.

  • Enhance your customer service skills. Find 1-2 ways to interact more or in a different way with internal and external customers.

  • Meet with your colleagues after completing projects or assignments for "give and take" feedback to pinpoint strengths and development needs. Incorporate the feedback in your development activities.

  • Write down 2-3 things that you love in your current role and determine specific ways to do more of it. Include the ideas in your development plan.

Hope the above ideas prove to be useful. Do feel free to share your feedback with me. I plan to write about career exploration in my next post...




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Women in the Boardroom

A recent study conducted by New York-based not-for-profit organization Catalyst has revealed that companies that hire more women at senior executive positions stand to improve financially.

It wqs found that companies which had at least 30 per cent women on the board performed better. Also, boards that had more women in 2001 saw their numbers rise further by 2006, indicating that women on top bring in more women.

Catalyst based its study on an analysis of 359 Fortune 500 companies starting in 2000 and thereafter once again in 2006. Companies with maximum women directors and corporate officers also showed improved financial numbers as against companies that lacked women at the top.

The study also said that the number of Fortune 500 companeis that had more than 25 per cent or more of women, was also growing in numbers consistently. While only 30 companies fitted the bill in 2001, the number went up to 68 in 2007.

In Feb 2008, PepsiCo's India-born chief Indra Nooyi was among Forbes' list of 10 best women chief executive officers of large corporations based on their total return to investors since each woman took the top job.

Forbes gives top rank to Catherine Burzik, head of Kinetic Concepts, a medical technology company, and number two to Meg Whitman of eBay, the online marketplace. PepsiCo under Nooyi, who took over as CEO in October 2006, gave investors annual return of 9.4 percent, and 13.1 percent cumulative. Standard & Poor (S&P) annualised return is 2.6 percent while industry average annualised return is 0.4 percent, according to the magazine.

Paying a compliment to the women CEOs on the list, Forbes magazine said stock performance had as much to do with corporate leadership as it had to do with the state of the marketplace.

The magazine said of about 1,000 public companies with at least $1 billion in annual revenue, there are 30 female chief executives in its database. A dozen of these companies have shown total returns greater than their industry peers, with a minimum length of time in office of the CEO of a year and a half. Nooyi's strategy and style of functioning at the global food and soft drinks behemoth has been analysed by Fortune magazine in a cover story in its current issue.

The magazine had earlier rated her the world's most powerful businesswoman in 2006 and 2007.