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Career
Projections
Life’s changes occur in more than just a vacuum created by new technologies, or by people “simply” wishing to change careers or challenging themselves. I’m here to facilitate all eventualities in your life. Many of my clients remain clients after college. It may come as a shock to some but learning never stops and professional development and training is key in competitive workplaces and changing environments.
In this new age of AI, it has never been more relevant to step back and ask:
Am I still relevant, or is there more I could be doing?
My empathetic and strategic brain helped me keenly understand my clients’ needs. Are they getting enough sleep? Is their diet actually useful, or are they just going on a binge until the learning is “over”? More to the point, do they actually want to be in college or their job? One of the key learnings everyone should take from college is, of course:
What have I learnt?
Look at the list below. If you have completed a degree, whether undergraduate or postgraduate, the following basics should be on your CV.
Are they?
One of the most fundamental errors people make when they engage with professional development is that they do not engage with what has happened to them. The piece of paper at graduation is what they seemingly think they hand over when people say: “What did you learn?” Indeed, when I ask to see people’s CV’s, the only mention of this professional development is as follows:
College X attended – Date range – Grade achieved.
Congratulations, you graduated with nothing, I'm afraid.
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Why choose me?
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Running and managing my business over the past ten years has gifted me a large amount of skills and experience in sales and marketing, as well as generating creative liberty and autonomy and control over the projects I work on. You’re welcome to what I picked up doing this. I am extremely adaptable and will invent new ways of working in order to help streamline my workload and produce greater results. Let me show you what I learned.
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It also gave me further insight into skills I picked up from my postgrad studies, such as analytical and problem-solving skills, critical thinking skills, implementing and co-operating with change, strategic thinking and planning skills, organisational skills, technical skills, time management skills, branding, marketing and networking skills, as well as public relations skills.
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As well as managing staff internally for a number of years in Career Projections, externally I also manage up to 20-30 clients a year (many of which were ongoing for 1-3 years, in the case of PhD students). This was on top of keeping supervisors informed of their students’ progress, as well as making sure academic deadlines were met, not only in one college, but also across three or more at the same time, each with their own way of doing things and deadlines. You know what that spells?
T-I-M-E M-A-N-A-G-E-M-E-N-T
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Planning and setting short- and long-term goals. Nothing comes without sacrifice, but it doesn’t have to be your sacrifice. Learn to control the environment you have now entered. Professional development does not mean professional suicide.
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All of the above is more than just boasting, it’s a roadmap of sorts of my own realisation of my skills and experiences, of my own professional development and where I need to pick up both soft and hard skills to enable me to run my business successfully, not only within an academic and learning environment, but also in a business and financial environment.
What do you get from me?
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Better time management; time saved working on your thesis and assignment is time refunded back in your career and social life. Remember the 5 P’s: Prioritize, Plan, Procrastination, Productivity, and Positivity
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Improved confidence to take on tougher projects and to see that goal-oriented projects need not be rigid and self-serving. Confidence is a desirable trait for an employee because they're more likely to accept new opportunities, make informed decisions, and display characteristics of leadership
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A spirit of mentoring that you can take back to those you supervise or manage, of how to teach and instruct them without unnecessary and archaic “schooling” methods
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Professional development can enhance your hiring potential because you increase your knowledge, skills, and competencies, whereby you will increase both hard and soft skills within the workplace. Hard skills refer to job-specific knowledge you receive through training or education, while soft skills are personal habits that define how you work, such as communication
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Professional development can also increase your ability to network through events that many professionals attend, such as: Seminars Webinars Conferences Workshops Volunteer events Classes or programs
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A better means to create a schedule of goals. Creating goals can help you map out how you want to progress or the areas that you could improve. It can also help you visualize the outcomes
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Better understanding, not only of why we research, but also how to research “smarter not faster”
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A better understanding of how workflows can be utilized effectively
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A better way of regulating your emotions and thoughts during the academic or thesis process; it will happen, so you might as well prepare; With this in mind, stress management is very important here
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The ability to think critically and solve problems; when I help my clients, a little piece of me is given over; learning the same way I learnt from my supervisors/mentors in college: through example.
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The ability to demonstrate information literacy, to understand and espouse ethical and civic responsibility, and of course, to communicate effectively.
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How to build collaborative relationships in college and make contacts with the right people who can help you. Who are the key movers in college that can help you research quicker? Use the resources you’re paying for in college, wisely; more importantly, use them in the first place!