Aligning your skills with your career choices.
Positive Minds | Positive Quotes | Edition 014
If you are a marketing expert or business strategist, you are probably familiar with the Ansoff Matrix and have applied it a few times. It's a tool that helps executives and marketers understand how they can grow their businesses and devise strategies to achieve more growth.
When I do career coaching with young Africans, here are some of the questions they ask me:
How do I get a job in the humanitarian sector?
How can I work with a large INGO?
How can I move from the private sector to the humanitarian sector?
I want to move into the humanitarian sector; how can I achieve this?
I want to change my career path; where do I start?
It is always challenging to answer these questions for young people trying to find their way through the professional labyrinth. After a few dozen conversations with young people, I decided to adapt the Ansoff matrix to the career. It is a 2x2 matrix that maps skills and industry. This gives 4 quadrants, from the lowest risk quadrant to the highest risk quadrant.
Quadrant 1 or low risk: Consolidating current skills in the current industry. This is your safety and comfort area.
Quadrant 2 or Medium Risk #1: Developing new skills for the current industry. This is your growth area.
Quadrant 3 or Medium Risk #2: Use current (transferable) skills in a new industry. This is your stretch area.
Quadrant 4 or High Risk: Develop new skills for a new industry. This is your self-invention zone. It is a leap into the unknown but can result in a huge return on investment.
Which quadrant are you currently in, and which do you aspire to be in? And what strategy would you use: evolve smoothly (move from quadrant 1 to 2 or 3, then to 4) or self-invent (move directly from quadrant 1 to 4)?
Leave me your thoughts.
