subject: Career Research: Learn One Thing Every Single Day [print this page] Career Research: Learn One Thing Every Single Day
Postgraduate degree: noun; pursuing advanced study after graduation from high school or college.
From the uber-prestigious Harvard Business School to Johns Hopkins School of Medecine's world renowned medical training grounds, the quality of postgraduate education available to anyone with a mere $50,000 lying around (annually) is truly amazing.
Those schools produce top notch job candidates for the business sector and medical field. The training you receive is second-to-none, and as soon as you slap your diploma down on a hiring manager's desk their first reaction is to reach out their right hand and say something like, "Welcome to the team!"
But you DON'T need to enroll in an official post-graduate program to continue learning about fields that interest you. You DON'T need to invest four years of your life and ten's of thousands of dollars solely on achieving that goal. In fact, you have the ability as an ambitious and intelligent human being to study topics that interest you all by yourself.
Which brings me to my point - I would like to deliver a challenge:
Every single day, go out of your way to learn one new piece of career advice.
For people looking to move into a different position/industry, this tactic can help because:
Gives you intelligent water-cooler conversation starters (always important) Helps you discover networking events that could help you land a JOB Shows you where business is being won/lost as well as what major personelle changes are taking place Knowing the above reveals where dollars are being allocated as well as who will be in charge of handling those dollars. Where money is being invested, there are positions available
Sounds great, but you already have a job? Well ...
When somebody meets you and is spewing nonsense about a particular job/industry, you can quickly call them out on it. This is an advantage if you hire talent or are going to be assigned to work alongside/underneath this individual.Need a new business development coordinator? You'd know the times and dates of industry-specific networking events and can pluck top-tier talent from these crowds
Just saw that your top competitor lost their big account? Thank god you picked up that biz dev coordinator! Put him/her to work right away because you know where dollars are shifting within your industries landscape and can step in to proactively grab that business!
This can be achieved through your individual ability to focus on learning one thing every day.
Whether that happens as you read the Wall Street Journal over breakfast, browse through your Kindle on the ride to work or during your lunch hour as you cruise your favorite RSS feeds, find resources that are talking about your industry (or the industry you'd like to move into) and invest time into familiarizing yourself with them.
Make a commitment to develop and grow as a young professional by learing one new things every day. Do you career research; get rewarded for putting in the work.
