Top 7 Career Options in Management To Choose [For Freshers & Experienced]
Today, both young aspirants and working professionals are attracted to management careers, and rightly so. Besides promising a host of exciting and rewarding career options, a management career allows you to take over people-centric roles, gain a respectable position in the workplace, and take home a hefty annual salary package.
After pursuing a management career, you can rise to top management positions in companies where you can make impactful changes powered by data-driven business strategies. For instance, you’ll be better equipped to create meaningful changes in a company, such as enforcing better utilization of resources, streamlining business operations, supervising staff’s performance, planning business campaigns, and so much more.
Typically, organizations offer a wide range of managerial positions, ranging from front-line supervisory positions (Sales Manager, R&D Executive, General Manager, etc.) to the top executive level such as CEO, COO, and CTO. Managers in all tiers within a company are together responsible for its smooth functioning as an efficient and successful business entity.
This is the first step in the career management system and provides self-introspection. What are your interests, what is essential for you, what are the things you value, what are the things you like, what are your unique skills etc. are some questions that need to be answered in this phase for discovering specific things about yourself.
- Career values – It is essential to integrate work values with overall life values to know what is necessary for you in life. It is the work values that acts as a guiding force and helps to focus on the essential things. An individual who is happy and satisfied in personal life will quickly achieve better productivity. Remember, work values keep on changing at intervals, and it becomes essential to keep on reassessing them regularly for overall job success.
- Work preferences – Work preferences play a significant role in career development planning. It is a personal choice, and it is quite natural for two people to have different work preferences in life. Dig deeper to assess and identify work preferences and, if necessary, take the help of assessment tools for your purpose.
- Strengths – Understand your strengths if you are interested in career exploration/career development planning. Look for positive qualities like hard-working, detail-oriented, excellent communication skills, and also specific traits like good at decision making, soft skills, etc. to develop your full potential. The more specific your abilities and qualities are, the more you will be successful in the job interviews.
- Weakness – Just like strengths, it is also essential to identify your weakness if you are interested in career exploration/career development planning. Hiring managers pay special attention to the weakness of the applicants, and often one of the job interview questions is what do you consider your weakness. An honest understanding of your weakness will help you in overcoming them in time so that you are not embarrassed by it at any moment. Do not be overly self-critical as this step is designed so that a person can call attention to perceived weaknesses and take matters in hand to eliminate them.
Technology is reigning supreme in all the spheres of our life. All the technical devices like tablets, phones, and computers have become necessary in the workplace and often determine how we are managing our work life.
One of the most critical aspects of career exploration/career development planning is effective networking. It is an essential asset that can take your career a step further. Develop and hone your ability to connect and interact with important people.
Weird Advice For Young Designers
I recently worked on a pro bono project for a friend, and it reminded me of a time early in my career and how lucky I was then to get such great advice from the more seasoned pros around me. Advice that ultimately saved me from some major pitfalls. I made mistakes here and there over the course of nearly 20 years of projects, but with each hiccup came a lesson. Here are some takeaways from my lessons learned and all that sage advice.
Questions Equal Clarity
Clients come to us designers for our expertise, and it is our job to guide them through the process. We are helping them find clarity about their vision and goals for their project. To do that well means asking questions! It is important to remember that not all clients are going to be good at communicating their vision—and that’s okay. You can still work with them and get amazing results by asking them lots of questions and following up on those answers with more questions until you’re both on the same page. This dialogue will help set clear expectations for project scope, deliverables, and everything in between while avoiding frustration for both parties.
Think about the word ‘classic.’ Now think of five things that could be described as ‘classic’—it probably varies wildly, right? So, which version does your client imagine? You could guess… or you could clarify with more questions like “Can you show me an example of what ‘classic’ looks like to you?” or “What makes this classic?” And so on. It’s a silly example, but it illustrates just how subjective descriptions can be and how necessary it is to have good communication between you and the client. Remember that your clients don’t do this for a living, so asking questions will help you get to the root of any issue quickly with less time spent guessing. And no, it won’t look unprofessional if you ask a lot of questions, but it will make you a better creative.
Collaboration For The Win
On one side of the table, you have a designer with knowledge and experience. On the other side of the table, you have the client who knows their business, audience, and goals. As creatives, we have to remember that we are on the same team as our clients and aim at collaboration over confrontation. Design should be a collaborative process: both parties are at the table with different perspectives and different knowledge to contribute. It is this diversity of viewpoints that will make the creative stronger and your client ultimately happier.
When you work collaboratively with your clients, they’ll often tell you what they need before even realizing it themselves—and sometimes, those needs are things that they didn’t even realize they wanted until after having talked it through with someone else! This is because people often have trouble articulating what they need out loud (even if they think they know exactly what they want), so getting clients involved in the process can help ensure that everyone’s needs and project goals are met.
It all boils down to communication. Everyone at the table, both clients and designers, want to feel heard and respected. Good communication and listening skills are a way to ensure that clients understand that they don’t need to be designers themselves, but they are still contributing meaningfully to the project. This helps keep them fully invested in a great outcome.
Contracts Are Your Friend
Contracts can help you set clear expectations for both parties. The best way to protect your business and make sure you don’t get burned by a client is to have a signed contract before doing any design work. If you’ve ever been burned by a client (or had to fire one) it’s probably because you didn’t have a contract in place when you started the project with them.
As a designer, it can feel a little awkward to send a contract and you may be tempted to just dive right into the work even when a client hasn’t signed a contract. But there are several reasons why you should always, ALWAYS get a contract signed before doing any design work.
First, this will help you protect yourself from scope creep. Clearly defining the project scope is essential. If the client wants to add extra elements or changes their mind four times about what they need to be designed, it’s much easier when you have a contract and clearly defined deliverables to say, “Sorry, but we have to go back and renegotiate the scope of our agreement.” This way, you won’t end up doing more work than you agreed on.
Resources:
https://www.upgrad.com/blog/career-options-in-management/
https://www.marketing91.com/career-management/
https://www.workitdaily.com/career-management-defining-process-purpose
https://www.mbaknol.com/human-resource-management/career-management-definition-and-meaning/
https://www.thebalancecareers.com/is-management-for-me-2275352