An article written by me for the Commencement Magazine (Commencement 2014).
AUTHOR
NUS Career Centre - Valerie Tan
Congratulations on your graduation!
Now that the Commencement Ceremony is over, thousands of fresh graduates like you will be heading off for their first full-time jobs. While many have had part-time jobs before, this new position can be an incredible learning experience and a stepping stone for your long-term career.
Today, with advances in technology, the workplace has changed significantly. There's no linear career path - a bachelor degree won't guarantee you a job and where you start your first job might probably not be where you ended up.
Things that mattered when you were a student - your CAP score and your major aren't as important as your network, your online presence, your work ethnic and the right skills. To get ahead at work in todays' economy, you will need a different set of rules altogether.
To begin, here are some tips to help you stand out and get ahead at work in todays' working world!
First of all, you will need to focus and build on your soft skills over your hard skills. This is because hiring managers are looking at your soft skills beyond your hard ones due to the fact that it is often easier for hiring managers to find professionals with the right skills, but more challenging to find someone who has good communications skills and emotional intelligence. Also, as you move up in an organization, soft skills become more valuable because you'll be managing people and leading them to accomplish goals. As a result, it is very important to build your soft skills beyond your hard skills.
Soft skills focus on interactions and relationships. For instance, communications, networking, presentation, management, leadership skills, etc.
Hard skills are job-specific skills which are technical and functional in nature. For instance, financial, budgetary, IT, procurement, healthcare skills, etc
- Adapted from Hays
Secondly, maintaining your digital presence in today fast-paced digital age is such an important task. The reason is that the Internet is the global pool for you to receive new opportunities and everyone has to be part of it, if not, you will be losing out! Having said that, the best way to be part of this global pool is by having your own website and profiles on social network such as LinkedIn readily online for people to look you up. This is because you won't get new opportunities if people can't find you as these days, many companies are using social networks to recruit.
One important thing to note is that creating these profiles isn't enough; you will need to optimize them by linking them together, using keywords that reflect the job you want as well as marketing them. You will need to constantly manage your online presence as what other people say about you online is how you'll be represented to the world in today's digital age.
Last but not least, learning shouldn't stop when you work as learning is a continuous pattern for you to stay relevant on the job. While a lot of people are trying to learn as much as possible to stay relevant, the most effective way to gather insights and getting ahead is actually to acquire knowledge through connections. This is due to the fact that we've moved from an information economy to a social one that requires you to be in the "know and rely" on people to connect you with information and opportunities. Hence, the strength and size of your network will determine how far you go in your career.
In conclusion, if you have a good combination of soft and hard skills, have maintained a strong digital presence in the digital world as well as built strong and large network connections, you will be able to get ahead and stand out!
Comments
Post a Comment