Alan Stutts | BLOG | Education Author

Tell friends, family, and co-workers know what your career goals are. Making a goal public will help your resolve to achieve it. If you want to be general manager of chain property, don’t keep it a secret! (How you express your dream is critical. Never let ambition be interpreted as arrogance or cockiness.) There will be co-workers or family members or friends who say you’ll never make it or tell you to keep it to yourself so you don’t sound like a braggart, but if you let people know what your are aiming for and you back up words with action, you will earn the respect of the organization’s where you work and find allies in the industry willing to help you succeed.

Having a career plan is only a start; you have to implement the plan, too. Despite your best efforts, things sometimes things do not work out. You cannot control everything that happens in your life, but when it comes to your career, you need to take control over the things that can make or break your chances for success.

Some of the things that you cannot control are:

Economic conditions that reduce employment locally, regionally, or nationally.

Poor management at the top of an organization resulting in closures or staff reductions.

Natural disasters (floods, hurricanes, or fires) that destroy properties or cut-off visitor access.

Crises such as disease epidemics, war or terrorist attacks. The tragedy of September 11, 2001 resulted in over 350,000 jobs in travel and hospitality being lost in the three months after the disaster.

Measure the costs and benefits of each occupation, program of study, or job to: your self, your family, your cultural group and your community or society?

a. Rank occupations, programs of study, or jobs
b. Make a choice
c. Make back-up choice(s) in case there is a problem with your first choice

Implement Your Choice

d. Plan - Make a plan for getting education or training
e. Try Out - Get work experience (full time, part-time, volunteer) and take courses or get training to test my choice
f. Apply - Apply for and get a job

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 at 4:52 pm and is filed under Networking Your Way to a Career. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.