Goals 2011 — Career
This category is perhaps the easiest of all, as my short-term goals in this area are relatively simple — I want to have a reasonably good job, without complicating my life.
Back in 2005, my goal was to regularize my level — I was regularly acting in higher positions, but was still “languishing” in a lower position. So I passed a couple of competitions, and became a manager, one level below executive. And I thought, at the time, that I would spend a few years consolidating my skill set, trying out some different challenges and opportunities, and then moving up. A couple of those challenges weren’t a lot of fun, and I bounced around twice before ending up in my current job. The previous jobs weren’t horrible, they were actually both quite good for awhile. But situations change, and I moved on. Now, with the arrival of my son and having gotten married, my priorities have shifted, as have my willingness to put in extra hours. In short, I’m not willing anymore, and I don’t want the extra responsibility right now of the executive level. So I’m parking myself for now, and I’ll focus on other issues to bolster my resume so that a few years from now I’ll be well-positioned to start moving up again. I wouldn’t say no to a in-category bump to a EC-08 position, but I’m fine where I am for now.
But I’m still doing certain things that are part of my larger career plan. For example, I still do mentoring and coaching for individuals on HR competitions. I’ll finish my guide this spring, and I’ll be able to hand it out to people to help them. It will also let me be more focused in my mentoring — I won’t have to give extra context, I’ll be able to go straight to the parts I want to focus on.
The past two years gave me an opportunity to work on the Economic Action Plan roll-out, as well as the branch process for Strategic Review, and I learned a lot from both exercises. Now, as both start to wind down, I’m looking forward to focusing on my “day job”. However, I need to kickstart my french again, and will likely look at some online options in the short-term.
And that’s it. Nothing too fancy. My bucket list for career only has one item on it (Make a presentation to more than a 1000 people), and I doubt I’ll be doing that this year, but it’s nice to know it’s there. Maybe I’ll settle for a 1000 downloads of my HR guide, once it’s finished! 🙂
