Job Objectives, Career Objectives and Personal Objectives

While choosing a job, career or a profession, do you ask yourself about the basic objective behind your objective???

We all have objectives in our lives. Some have explicit objectives, others have implicit ones. Some follow with conscious efforts other follow them with intuition or unconsciously. It is observed that most of us could not work out properly the desired outcome of the objectives. In the other worlds, do our objects will result in the kind of SATISFACTION we expect or associate with them or not, is a question that merely is asked by us.  In this era of fads, trends and fashions, our objectives too get influenced by others. Most of the times, these external factors have little or no relevance to our personal lives and career objectives.

Let’s take the example of choosing a profession for life and its link with famous prevailing trends. Before 1990 there was a massive trend of joining armed forces in Pakistan. The armed forces were a symbol of bravery & charm. The permanent nature of the job and facilities were greatly admired and inspired by the public at large. During 1992 there was again rise in the trend of becoming doctors and engineers. The rise of computer sciences during 1996 in Pakistan influenced a large number of students to opt computer intensive courses in order to choose computer studies as their future area of professions.

If we conduct a survey of the students who are enrolled in different universities in Pakistan, a majority of the students will reveal some of the following reasons for their basic motive to opt for the course they are studying or the career they wish to pursue:

·         Father’s desire

·         Mother’s desire

·         Influenced by a cousin or a friend or a neighbor

·         This is what most of the people desire to do

·         Etc etc

You would be surprised to know that most of the BBA students, when they are offered specialization course options after one year of their studies, still seem confused and undecided. If they have had opted the course by themselves with a strong passion behind this decision, they have had a better idea of which specialization they should opt for. They would not only have a clarity towards their specialization options (Marketing, Management, Human Resources Management, Finance, Accounting etc… ) but would also have a good understanding of the course scheme, course challenges, future jobs, and ultimate career.  

Individuals (in shape of employees) who could not discover their personal objectives, always struggle to find true satisfaction. Given below are some of the problems that they may face:

-          High level of dissatisfaction with the professions

-          High level of stress

-          Low productivity

-          Low level of motivation

-          High level of complaints

-          High level of conflicts

7 tips to stay confident during interviews

7 tips to stay confident during interviews:

Staying natural and confident during interviews is the most crucial part of getting recruited. The success and failure lies on this particular aspect. It’s not how much you possess the knowledge it’s how you exhibit the knowledge during interviews. A normal interview may range between 5-25 minutes; however this may vary according to the nature and level of the job, industry, interviewer/ interviewee’s skills and expertise to handle interviews.

We have seen many who are the tigers on transcripts with flying grades / CGPA’s, however remained unsuccessful in securing a simple job. They possessed all that was required to secure the job, however they failed to impress the interviewers and lacked the basic ingredient of interviewing skills which is called ‘CONFIDENCE…’

Let me share with you an example of an interview that we intended to hire a full time engineer for our Fareham, Southampton, UK   factory. John Moore (Technical Director) showed a keen interest in a candidate during interview and the session prolonged to almost half an hour. After the interview Mr. Moore told me that he would not recommend this gentleman for the job. I was surprised as the candidate fulfilled all the basic requirements and skills for the job. On enquiring, he told me that the candidate was not confident during the interview and he suspect as if was trying to hide something from him…

This is one of the many examples that we notice or even unnoticed during the interviews. This is something that all the panel members dedicate a special attention during the interviews.     

Tips

1.  Prepare well before the interviews. You can establish a clear link between the job advertisements, the potential job and the expected requirements from the candidates. List down the potential questions and answers. Hire the services of your fiend to ask those questions and try to address them with confidence, logic and tactfully. You will be surprised to discover that you were able to predict 50-80% of the questions being asked during the interviews.

2.  Try to understand the corporate structure and the working. Even with similar professions there may be huge differences between the working conditions, practices and expectations. A visit to the organization may give you many verbal and nonverbal indications and understanding of the prevailing working environment. This will be very helpful to the candidates who are in their earlier professional carriers, especially the ones who have just graduated from the institutes. Normally such candidates feel huge nervousness and hold an artificial view of the organizations.

3.Try to get information about the interviewer and his style of work. Is S/he task oriented or people oriented. Plan your interview according to what s/he feels important than what you feel yourself. It’s all about her/him, not you during interviews.   

4. Try to collect latest information related to your field of studies. Read news papers, professional article, digests etc… It looks very odd during an interview if a mega event has happened within you professional arena and you exhibit to no knowledge about this.

5.   Sleep well, eat well and reach well before the time of interview. Make sure you carry all the relevant documents, invitation letters and other proofs required during the interviews.

66. Have faith and confidence that this is not the first and the last job on earth. Make this a learning experience and try to enjoy the session as much as you can.    

7.  Last but not least, don’t get hurt with failures. Turn every failure into a useful lesson. Try to work on the weakness that you discovered during the interviews. Also try to appear in as much interviews as you can. By this you would learn the key questions that are being asked in your professional area. You will learn about the key skills that they look for during the interviews. This will grow your confidence level and ultimately let you secure the desired job.

Best of luck for your interviews….

Afzal Moshadi Shah