“How/Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?”
“What is your career vision?”
“Why do you want to join corporate world?”
“What is your aim in life?”
These are some of the questions, a college student may be asked during a campus placement interview. As students, the mistake we did was, figured out the “best” and the “ideal” responses to these questions and gave them as our answers to the interviewers. This was not only a mistake, but a BIG mistake. Looking back now, after being through some part of my corporate journey, I wish I could understand the importance of those questions at that stage of my life. It was important to do so-not for my employer, but for my own self.
Hence, here I am, pointing out a few career advice for the lovely girls out there, who are in college right now and are looking for a corporate career for themselves.
Dear girls, before you begin to choose a career for yourself, kindly be aware of these two facts of your life:
- You would want to get married
- You would want to have kids
Well, you could be amongst those girls who are adamant that they will never get married in life. It’s of course your personal choice; however my suggestion would be read on, just in case life does get you married!
Now, knowing these important phases of your life, kindly also spend some time thinking about possible effects of these two things in your career:
- Your new family may or may not approve of a career for you
- The location of your new family could be different from your base town
- After kids, you would need to take maternity leave
- After marriage/kids, you may have to take occasional leaves from work, at times much more than the allowed number of leaves
- After kids, you could be coming late to office/leaving early from office/skipping team dinners/missing off-sites etc. on a regular basis.
- After marriage, you would have to be a super-woman who can get up early morning, cook food and be in office on time, and return home to cook food again. If you are one of the lucky ones, you may keep a maid.
- If you do have a maid, managing one is another big task, which you should be prepared to handle.
- In a situation where only one of you can pursue a career, it would be your husband continuing to climb the corporate ladder.
You need to be aware of these. Completely aware. Almost every other woman, who decides to have a career, goes through this.
Considering these challenges which would surely hurt you and your career later on, make a career choice wisely. And hence, do ask yourself these questions before you decide to sit for a campus placement:
“How/Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?”
“What is your career vision?”
“Why do you want to join corporate world?”
“What is your aim in life?”
With the answers of these important questions clear in your mind, do also consider these options, before applying to companies:
- Take regional postings/be willing to travel: It is far easier for you to travel and even live in regional/small towns when you are not married. In most of the corporates, there are regional level roles and corporate roles. Corporate roles would primarily be in metros or big cities. Regional offices could be in state capitals or locations around that. For most functions and roles, you would be required to have experience of both regional and corporate roles by the time you reach up high in the ladder. Now, make a smart choice here. It would be really difficult to move around with a husband and kid to smaller cities or towns/or even take up a travelling role, and hence finish these stints right in the beginning of the career. If you do this, you would also have a regional experience stamped on your CV, and later on you could demand corporate roles citing your prior experience of being in the field.
- Join progressive organizations: I am guessing that most of you would want to work for at least 3 to 5 years before taking the marriage plunge. Even if you don’t get into a good organization during a campus placement, keep searching avenues to move into a progressive organization. A progressive organization would be one which would have a lot of women friendly policies and processes. And hence, it would be easier for you to take maternity breaks and later on flexible working timings. All good career pages of progressive organizations would have details on their women friendly practices. Decide your joining them basis that. It is a known fact that loyalty and trust plays a crucial role for an organization to allow you to work from home, or take flexi-timings etc. And hence your timing of joining such an organization should be well planned. You should have spent considerable time there for you to be really able to balance your work and home in true sense.
- Show results: Your performance of your initial years would speak volumes for the kind of roles you get later on in your life. And hence be willing to take up extra work, additional responsibilities and keep delivering on results. You may have some dips in performance, post a delivery or in some cases post marriage as well. And hence compensate for that period right now. Move around, extend yourself and just keep delivering results!
- Pursue a hobby: Some of us just don’t look at this aspect very seriously. However the fact is that just in case you do have to quit corporate world and be a stay at home mommy, an active interest in a hobby would help you. And you may explore to work from home or become an entrepreneur in the hobby of your choice. I know of an author mummy, a dance teacher wife, a boutique owner who is also a mother of two! So, don’t give up on your hobbies in college, keep them nicely intact with you. You never know, when you need them to come rescue you from mundane jobs of managing a home.
It’s a known fact that very few women reach the top leadership positions of organizations. it is because they leave their careers mid-way. We do hope the statistics change in this pretty soon, but till that time we need to be practical and hence my lovely girls, be wise and plan wise.
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Insightful.
Thank you.