Got a great admission to my dream college and university

1. Got a great admission to my dream college and university, what about my career? Most young professionals and recent graduates are very eager to answer the question "How to be successful in my career" without understanding what a career actually means and how does one select a career. The best time to start building one's orientation to a career should be when you are in Grade 8. This is where you are exposed to multiple disciplines in both the arts, sciences and social sciences. However most of us don't think about our careers, till the task of finding a job actually hits you in your pre-final year and final year of under-graduation or graduation. In India, this issue is more pronounced as young people only start thinking about their careers and jobs after the first few years in the professional world. Most decisions taken at this time are made out of spite and are typically knee-jerk reactions. Most young people know very well what they don't want to do in their careers even though they may be well qualified for those paths. The rationale for these decisions is purely emotional and not based on tangible data and therefore a lot of time at the start of the career is lost to re-alignment. To avoid the situation of re-alignment, two to three years in one's career, a young student while still pursuing their academic course should follow the Self-Career-Industry-Company-Job Role funnel process. Let's get into the details of the funnel: 1. Self Awareness: Before you start thinking about your engineering stream (B.Tech. or B.E. in Computer Science, Electronics, Chemical, Electrical, Environmental, Civil, etc.) or MBA specialization (Marketing, HR, Operations, IT, Strategy etc.) or undergraduate majors (B.Com., BBA etc.) you need to understand yourself very well. Ask yourself the following questions: What are my interests in life? How do I interact with people and what kind of people would I like to work for? How comfortable I am with very diverse and non-traditional environments? What would be my ideal workplace? Do I want to be out in the field or in a nice cozy corporate office? How will I be successful in life? At MBAtrek, we have created a unique assessment tool called Me and Myself Assessment which will help you understand yourself better. This assessment will form the base of what kind of industries, companies and job roles you are most suited to.

2. 2. Behavioral Analyses: Now that you have a fair understanding of yourself, you need to understand how you interact with the external environment. This is where you need to conduct a detailed behavioral analysis to understand key personality triggers. Key areas that you should look at: Team Player tendencies Stress Management abilities Emotional Stability Passion for work Responsibility / Accountability levels Self Starter abilities Open to Learning Do connect with our team in case you are looking for a detailed behavioral profile. We use multiple standardized assessments to provide you with a detailed profile. A word of caution do not try to do this purely on your own and / or use friends and family. The inherent biases will render the outcome of your exercise futile. Please seek professional help here. 3. Cognitive Assessments: Most students and young professionals are fairly familiar with cognitive assessments often offered in the form of IQ tests. More often than not, most people make the mistake of focusing on the overall score from a cognitive or IQ assessment. The key is to actually focus on which segment of the assessment, did you demonstrate higher scores to be used as a proxy for capability: Numerical Ability Data Analysis Abstract Reasoning Attention to Details Critical Thinking Reasoning Ability Verbal Ability The different abilities and the competency across them will give one a strong sense of what kind of industries, companies, work environments and job roles that you would succeed in. Do connect with our career advisory team in case you are confused with what your IQ / cognitive score report actually means for your career. 4. Industry Sectors: Armed with your personal information and data, now it's time to go deep into industry sectors that you would like to work in. You need to get deep into what different industries stand for and whether you see yourself working therefore for atleast 3 to 5 years for a start. You also need to conduct detailed Industry Analyses to better understand what drives the latest movements in these sectors. We at MBAtrek offer a special service to help you develop your own Industry Analysis. Some key questions to ask yourself while selecting industry sectors of your choice:

3. Do I prefer to work in industries which are serving large institutional customers or individual retail customers? Would I work in a well-settled and mature industry sector or a sunshine sector which needs another 10 to 15 years to mature? Would I work in industries which are more product based or service based? The good news is that there is a variety of industry sectors that you can develop your career in, you just have to take the first step. Here is a comprehensive list of industry sectors: Agriculture and Agricultural Technology Auto and Auto Components Banking and Financial Services Chemical and Natural Resources Consulting and Professional Services Consumer Durables Education Energy and Utilities FMCG Healthcare Hospitality and Tourism IT / ITes Manufacturing and Heavy Engineering Media and Entertainment Oil and Gas Pharmaceuticals Real Estate and Infrastructure Retail and E-commerce Telecommunications Textile and Apparel Transportation (Aviation, Railways) 5. Type of Companies: Now that you have settled on the industry that you want to work for. Let's delve deeper into the type of companies where you can mark a strong start to your career. There are different types of companies that you would like to consider as a part of your selection: Indian based Company Multinational Company Indian based Multinational Company Non-profit / Not for Profit Startups / Early Stage Ventures New Age Tech Companies Government Companies / PSUs Think-tanks (NSDC, NITI Aayog etc.) At MBAtrek, we have gone a step further and created detailed insights and analysis on individual companies to help students, recent graduates and young professionals be better

4. prepared and informed about companies they are joining or targeting for jobs. We call this Company Analysis. 6. Job Roles and Functions: We are now at the final stage of the career targeting and selection process. The job roles and function is the specific area within the company / organization that you would like to work in. You will have to appreciate that given your educational background and previous experiences certain areas may not be easily available to break into in the early stages of your career and therefore you will have to look at other roles which act as stepping stones. Here is a fairly comprehensive list of job roles / functions in an organization: Accounting Administration Analytics, MIS and Business Reporting Corporate Finance Corporate Sustainability and CSR Customer Service / After Sales Support Environment, Health, and Safety Human Resources (Recruiting, Compensation, Talent and Staffing) Information Technology, and Security Labour and Industrial Relations Learning and Development Legal and Corporate Law Logistics and Supply Chain Manufacturing Marketing Public Relations and Corporate Communications Quality Management Research and Development Sales and CRM Strategy and Organization Development Cheers, Abhishek Srivastava (LinkedIn Profile) The writer of this blog is the co-founder and CEO of MBAtrek and extremely passionate about mentoring and coaching young professionals. He has worked in multiple MNCs like Apple, Accenture and Schneider Electric and a seasoned strategy and business professional with extensive experience across diverse industry sectors (oil and gas, telecom, metals and mining, consumer goods, chemicals, power generation. Abhishek is a MBA from the Indian School of Business and has a Masters in Environmental Engineering from Georgia Tech, USA (Recipient of Outstanding Masters Student) and a Bachelors in Environmental Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering, India.