Engineering a Career Ladder

Those days are long gone, when reaching the apex of the career started gradually after you signed onto an organization at age 21, followed the rules, were incrementally promoted, and retired with a gold watch.

Career ladders died out during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when over 85% of Fortune 1000 American companies downsized their white-collar workforce.* Downsizing has only escalated from there, however in the 80s and 90s the lost jobs were not in manufacturing but white-collar jobs, including management jobs. As companies thinned out, those leadership positions disappeared - and most haven't come back since.

Today they are just an artifact of the Mad Men era and have now become a thing of the past.

So despite their near extinction, why do we still believe in career ladders? Truthfully, intentionally or not, we are still promising traditional careers.

CAREER PROGRESSION LADDER

Whether you choose to follow a Technical or Management track, you will have the opportunity to progress along a formal career progression ladder each step of the way.

There are better ways to think about career moves. Try these tips for diverting your attention from the next step up.

Look laterally for career moves: Don't think of job descriptions as much as job families, or groups of jobs that have something in common. Remember Horizontal experience can also broaden your skills, which improves your chances of moving up.

Prove you can handle a promotion: Volunteer to help your manager with components of their job and learn to do them well.

Grow your skills to grow your job: Seek out and take advantage of opportunities when they appear, and actively exceed expectations.

It's a different world. But if a world without career ladders allows you to take charge of your own career, then it is a far better one. First thing first, start analyzing yourself based on your parameters as per the industry and work you want to be into.

1. If you are not sure as to whether you want or do not want to go into management as an engineer, do spend some quality time developing your technical skills first. Then slowly start to develop your core skills, like communication in networking.
2. Become actively involved in professional associations, so you can talk to other engineers to find out how they decided what career paths to take.
3. Seek a mentor who can provide guidance to you in your career-path navigation.
4. Asking yourself how a successful career would look to you in the future may help you create your career path.
5. Don't discount getting advanced degrees in both technical and management subjects.
6. Join professional associations that are very specific to what you do to find mentors that really understand your need.

Guru Nanak Institutions (GNI) is the Top Engineering College in Mullana Region. We at GNI trust that the target of instruction is to set up the youthful to teach themselves for the duration of their lives.

For more information, Please visit : http://gni.edu.in/