What Career Track Are You On?
Ajanlekoko, an electrical engineer, is a Senior Manager in one of the telecommunication companies operating in Nigeria. He earlier made same post on Nairaland.com
I have this theory about career.
There are basically three identifiable career tracks, and everyone loosely falls into one of the three.
1. General Track
This where most people generally fall into: Get a job, any available one in a reasonably okay organization, work hard, try to climb up the ladder to the best of your abilty, and hope for the best.
This one is usually limited by the organization(s). In some places depending on your job and allied factors, there might be a limit to how high you can climb, or if you can at all. In fact, this track doesn’t really pay again these days, and most people look down on it, even though that is where most guys end up anyhow.
The long and short of this one is that it leads a lot of people into corruption eventually.
2. Fast Track
The fast track is the assisted track, where the golden boy/girl is appointed by some big boys/girls, and he/she flies to the top position in record time, irrespective of what he or she is able to actually do. In fact, if you’re on this track, whatever you say is the way is the way. Nothing else matters. You just can’t go wrong.
The issue with this one is that people get burned by politics of the environment. Once your mentor is taken out, it must surely cascade to you. But they usually bounce back, because the Fast Trackers usually have a lot of solid backing.
3. Personal Track
This is the proverbial ‘track of the brave’. These are the people who take their career literally into their own hands. They set their own career goals, and what they want to achieve in any organization. They are not scared to move on when they feel that the environment has given them what it has to offer.
The downside is, they usually suffer a lot in their personal life, due to some tough choices they have to make in order to pursue their personal ambition. It is also not a path for the faint-hearted.
Where would you say your career track is right now?
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I am on the third one……but as you rightly said, Its no child’s play. You will need a whole lot of tenacity and resilience to stick to that path. The easiest one is the first choice. Infact it is very tempting. Something like: Finish from school with a First class or high 2:1, Pass KPMG or GTBank test and start working even if thats not the kind of life you wanted before. I have a friend of who finished with above 4.9 and got full funding from Harvard to run his P.hd program but later got in O&G. When he saw the salary he was offered, he declined Harvard admission straightaway! And the reason why he struggled to do well at school is bcos he had the dream of attending Harvard for his graduate studies. Now where is the dream. I am not castigating him though. We all have our choices and he is not doing bad at all anyway…
On personal track cos I believe in …Success is steady progress toward one’s personal goals.