A Better Way To Plan Your Career

My students frequently ask me how I planned out my career to become president of Fidelity Investments. I always tell them, "There was no grand plan; I backed into my career one step at a time."

In the years after I graduated from law school, I had no idea that I would ultimately become the president of a financial services giant. I held positions as a law professor, a senior official at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a partner in a law firm.

But during these early steps in my career, I learned a great deal about myself: I found that I really liked doing deals and managing people, rather than drafting regulations and writing articles. So I accepted a job offer at Fidelity Investments in 1987, when it was still relatively young. I spent the next decade climbing the corporate ladder; in 1997, for a complex set of reasons, I was chosen to be president of the company.

What does my history suggest about career planning? That you can't control the trajectory of your career. There are just too many factors beyond your control that will shape your job options--global economic trends, political elections, and technological changes, just to name a few. So don't commit the hubris of thinking that you can determine your professional glide path.

On the other hand, you can increase your probability of success by approaching your career with the right mind-set--one that recognizes that career planning is a continuous process that has to be actively managed. At each step in your career, you need to ask yourself: What can I do next that will maximize my options in the future?

Gain Transferable Knowledge

This process begins with the choices you make at school. You want your education to provide you with the necessary skills and expertise to succeed in a wide variety of jobs. This means that you need to make smart choice about the courses you will follow. I favor those that involve extensive writing, rigorous analysis, or quantitative skills.

Once you have finished your formal education, search for jobs that will allow you to further expand your transferable knowledge — to help you find your next job. Let's say you take a job putting together airplane leases. Within a few years, you could become the world's expert on the subject; however, this narrow expertise probably won't help you in any other line of work. By contrast, if you take a job that will expand your computer programming skills, you can greatly boost your options for later steps in your career.

Gaining experience outside your home country is another way to develop transferable knowledge. I lived for almost two years in Africa and have spent considerable time in England, Japan, and China. Through those experiences, I learned to deal with different economic, cultural, and political environments — which later helped me evaluate or start business units throughout the world.

Similarly, you can make yourself more attractive to more employers by working in different types of organizations during your career. For-profit companies may be concerned about hiring you if you have spent your entire career in government, for instance. At the top levels of management, publically traded companies often fear that a senior executive at a private company won't be able to adjust to the unique pressures of public shareholders and SEC mandates.

Grow Your Network

As you gain transferable knowledge, remember that that is only one piece of the puzzle: your next step should also help you expand your web of personal relationships with peers. To paraphrase a slogan, "Organizations don't hire people. People hire people." The more people you know, the more people will think of you when a job pops open — even when it is not publicly advertised.

Of course, you can build your network to some degree without changing jobs: you can attend conferences or participate in committees at trade associations. But this sort of event-driven networking pales in comparison with the deep bonds you can develop with your colleagues by working, conversing, and traveling with them.

As you ponder your next career step, then, think about the networking advantages you might gain from it. If you're ambitious, you can expand your network by moving to a new company, or even a new industry; obviously, that would be a momentous decision. More modestly, you can grow your network by accepting a job in another unit of the same firm or by heading an interdisciplinary project staffed by people from multiple units.

In this tough economy and ever-changing world, it is more important than ever to smartly evaluate each step in your career. To prepare for whatever surprises lie ahead, try to make choices today that will maximize your options in the future. Gain transferable expertise — in the classroom or at work — and form close bonds with your peers and colleagues.

译文：

有学生经常问我是如何规划职业，从而成为富达投资的主席的。我总是告诉他们：“其实并没什么宏大计划，我就是这样一步一步过来的。”

    自我从法学院毕业后，我根本不知道自己会变成一个金融服务巨头的主席。我担任过法律教授，证劵交易委员会的高级官员，以及法律公司的合伙人。

    在我职业生涯的早些年里，我对自己有了一个更清楚的认识：我发现对比笔头工作，我更喜欢处理事情和管理人员。所以，在1987年我接受了富达公司的工作，那个时候我还比较年轻。我在公司里面奋斗了10年；在1997年，因为一系列原因，我被选为公司主席。我想我的过去所能够带来的经验就是你并不能控制你职业的轨迹。有很多因素促成了你的职业选择---全球经济趋势，政治选举，还有技术进步，这还只是冰山一角。所以不要有那种你可以掌控全局的自大想法。

    另一方面，如果你有一个好的心态，成功的机会变会提高。你要知道职业规划是一个长期的过程，并且需要认真的管理。对于你走的每一步，你都要问自己：未来我应该怎样做才能得到最大限度的发挥？

    获取流动性知识

    其实你的生涯早在学校做选择时就开始了。你希望教育能够帮助你获得必要的专业技能，以便你能够胜任不同的工作。那意味着你对于课程的选择必须更明智。我建议你们可以选择拓展写作，逻辑分析和数量技能。当你完成了你的正规课程，在寻找工作时，你需要去扩大你的流动性知识，这也会有助你找到你的下一份工作。就比如说你找了一分整理航空单据的工作。若干年之后，你一定会变成这方面的专家。然而，这份经验对于其他方面的工作并没什么用处。相比之下，如果你获得一份能够提升电脑程序技能的工作，那么对于未来，你就会有更多的职业选择。

    在异国获得经验也是增加流动性知识的好方法。我曾在非洲住过2年，也在英国，日本和中国呆了相当长的一段时间。通过那些经验，我懂得了如何应对不同的经济，文化，和政治环境--这些在后来都帮助我在全世界评估或者开展我的商业计划。

    类似的，你也可以利用这些不同的经验，让自己变得更有竞争力。如果你一直在政府上班，那些盈利公司就会考虑聘用你。例如，在管理高层，上市公司经常会担心，那些私企的高管无法承担来自股民和证劵交易委员会的压力。

    发展你的人脉网

    当你获得流动性知识之后，请记住，这仅仅只是挑战的一部分：下一步你应该积极发展你的人脉关系。有一句话说的好：“组织并不雇佣人，人才是雇佣者。”你认识的人越多，才会有更多的人想给你工作机会--有时候这些都是不公开的。

    当然，在不换工作的情况下，你也是可以拓展人际关系的：你可以去参加会议或者加入同业公会的委员会，但是这远远不上你和同行通过一起工作，交谈，贸易所建立起来的深厚关系。

    当你在思考下一步该怎么走时，你需要想想你能够从中获得什么人力优势。如果你很有野心，你可以去一新的公司，甚至是一个新的行业，发展你的人脉网。显然，那是一个挺重要的决定。老实说，你也可以通过在同一家公司的不同部门工作，或者领导一个跨部门的项目来到达目的。

    在这个经济不景气，并且时刻变换着的世界，你更需要做好每一步的规划。无论前方有多少变数，你都要做好准备。做好今天的选择，让它发挥到最大限度。获取流动性技能--无论是在教室里还是在工作中---又或者是从你的同事那里。