Career Management

Rohit Gupta

rogupta@alum.mit.edu

April 14, 2008

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A couple questions

• How many of you know what you want to do in 5 years?

• 2 years?

• What is the point of me being here:

What I wish I heard when I was sitting in your seat 4 years ago

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My Background

• MIT Class of 2005

– Majored in 6.1, with a minor in 17

• Worked in politics, technology startups, consulting

– Currently at Accenture specializing in software architecture

• Spend at least 2 hours/week on career status

• Interview, on average, once every month

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Agenda

• My Background

• Managing Your Career

• Reinventing Yourself

• Useful Links and Books

• Questions

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Managing Your Career – Treat Like A Stock

• What does it mean to manage your career?

• Why is it important?

• What can I do?

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Managing Your Career

Focus areas:

• Assess yourself frequently and objectively

• Be cognizant of yourself at work

• Find a mentor

• Get to know people

• Develop a personal brand

• Take on multiple projects, new challenges

• The customer is king

• Learn to estimate

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Managing Your Career: Assess yourself

• Constantly update your resume and have others review

– Have your family, friends and colleagues review it – ask for honest feedback

• Play to your strengths

– An example

• Minimize potential weakness areas

– An example

• Take a personal assessment test

– Gallup’s Strengthsfinder

• Be objective!

– Get feedback from people around you

– Be open to constructive criticism

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Managing Your Career: Self-awareness at work

• Understand what other people think of you

– How?

• Attitude is key

• The little things matter a lot

• Pick your battles

• Manage your boss or supervisor

– Set expectations often

– Seek informal feedback

• Learn when and how to delegate

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Managing Your Career: Find a Mentor

• Early on, find someone you can trust as a mentor

• Talk to this person frequently, establish trust

• Seek out whenever you need workplace advice

• Update them on your career thoughts and vision

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Managing Your Career: Get to know people

• Get to know people (i.e. network)

– Always have business cards handy

– Keep in touch, even if there is no immediate need

– Stay in touch with old contacts from MIT, UROPs, internships

– Take initiative

– Listen and care to what they have to say (be sincere!)

– Join common interest groups

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Managing Your Career: Develop a personal brand

• Learn the elevator pitch (30 seconds or less)

– What you do

– What are your interests

– What you see yourself doing down the road (even if you have no idea)

– Your experience

• Make sure the people around you know what it is you do

• Talk to your boss and mentor frequently

• Be positive about your contributions

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Managing Your Career: Take on new challenges

• An example

• Why take on new challenges?

– Exposes yourself to more people

– Demonstrates initiative and leadership

– Helps you find potential interests and strengths

• Make sure to seek guidance when necessary

– Be open and honest about your skill-set going in

– Use your mentor

• Generally, it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than beg for permission

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Managing Your Career: The customer is king

• Old adage applies: “Customer is always right”

• Understand who your customer is (not just your boss)

• Cater your job around the customer and treat them well

• Respond to them immediately

• Turn your customer into an advocate

• Talk to them frequently

– Seek feedback

– Be honest

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Managing Your Career: Learn to estimate

• Estimation is an art, so practice

• Measure pieces of the puzzle, not milestones

• Brainstorm all possibilities

• Factor in unknowns

• 2 + 2 ≠ 4

• Contingency (multiply by 2-3)

• Always list assumptions

• Seek help, research, look at old projects

• Live and learn

Cone of Uncertainty

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Agenda

• My Background

• Managing Your Career

• Reinventing Yourself

• Useful Links and Books

• Questions

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Reinventing Yourself

• An example

• What does it mean to reinvent yourself?

– Find a new role

– Take on a new responsibility

– Pursue something on the side

– Change jobs completely

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Reinventing Yourself: The Learning Curve

Learning

Time9-18 months 5+ years

• What does this mean?

Roadmap

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Reinventing Yourself: How much should I like my job?

Enjoy or Value

Dislike or Cannot Stand

Roadmap

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Reinventing Yourself: Environmental Factors

InterestLearning

Logistics

PeoplePay

Perks

Everyone is different, but this is what I have found…

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Reinventing Yourself: Changing Jobs

• Determine interests

• Explore everything

– What Color Is Your Parachute

• Do not incrementally improve

• Play to your strengths

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Agenda

• My Background

• Managing Your Career

• Reinventing Yourself

• Useful Links and Books

• Questions

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Useful Links and Books

• Now, Discover Your Strengths

– https://www.strengthsfinder.com/

• What Color Is Your Parachute

– http://www.jobhuntersbible.com/

– http://www.amazon.com/What-Color-Your-Parachute-2008/dp/1580088686/

• The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers

– http://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Extraordinary-Careers-Achieving-Satisfaction/dp/B000AXRTTW/

• A Car, Some Cash, and a Place to Crash

– http://www.amazon.com/Car-Some-Cash-Place-Crash/dp/1579546269

• The Success Principles

– http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060594896/

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References

• Varun Gupta

• The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers

– http://www.5patterns.com/overview.php

• Career Warfare: 10 Rules for Building a Successful Personal Brand and Fighting to Keep It

• Countless colleagues, interviewers, companies, professors, advisors

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Questions?