When you are doing education at school, everyone gets promoted every year. In university, you have to work harder to finally get your university degree. You leave university charged up with your degree and you want to work with a Fortune 500 company like Accenture, PWC, BP or Sony which offers you a big tag on your CV, stable job, benefits and the sense of pride by being associated with the company

At the start of your career, you are often asked," Where do you see yourself ten years from now ?".  You will reply, I see myself as a Regional Manager, Project Manager or even director of the company.  How many people have achieved what they wanted for themselves ?

What metrics would you consider for your success ?

• Working with a Fortune 500 company
• Stable job with good post retirement benefits
• 25 days holiday in a year
• Promotion every 2 years with a tag "Manager"
• Competitive pay and annual pay rise
• Wide exposure and learning new things
• Working for yourself

When I talk to people, I often come across people who say that they are very busy. A friend of mine had been working with an IT company for ten years as a Java developer and he had been very busy working from one project to another. I queried him on whether he had thought of making a mobile application on Java and selling it on Apple apps store. To my surprise he told me he had never thought of it !!!  How could he think about a growth opportunity for himself, when his company had kept him busy for ten years…

Another friend of mine who had been very happy with his easy going  job with a fortune 500 company, suddenly realised he was wasting his life. A person who is junior to him can also do the same job … an indicator that the company can dispense him for a cheaper option. No good working with a reputable company when you do not have an opportunity to update your skills.

There is another person I met who has very good IT skills but works on highly customised solutions. More the knowledge gained on such an application, lesser the chances that the company will think about firing such a person. The question is whether such skills acquired on a customised solution make her "unemployable" in other companies.

In all the above three cases, they are working in very good companies but they also expect career growth.

What does it mean to a person when he or she says I want career growth ?

I had similar ideas in the earlier part of my career. Now I believe, a person should choose an education/profession that would help him set up his own business or practice. Working for someone else for 8 hours a day is different from working for 10 hours a day for oneself.

You may consider following:

• Do a MOT on your skill sets whether it is relevant ? And whether it will be in demand in the future. If yes, continue upgrading your skills or else analyse which skills you need to acquire.
• Do a dip check on whether you happiness on the job. Are you happy with what you are doing ? If yes, then explore ways to do varied things or else explore what can be done to make things better.
• Do a bank balance check to see whether you are making enough money for your holidays or future. If yes, then you explore growing in your company or else you may consider moving on or starting something on your own.

A good self assessment question, "What does career growth mean to you "? You should find an answer for it and shape your career accordingly. I hope some of my suggestions help.

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