Some expert advice on your career game plan this week: Angela Guido is joined by Career Protocol’s resident career whisperer, Aziz! Laying out your career path is an important part of any successful MBA application, not least because the career insight and self-evaluation that make it all click in place will transform you into a more unique, driven and inspiring candidate. Aziz lays out some simple tricks to give yourself some important future career advice, so sit back, grab a coffee and let’s boost your career and prepare for business success!!
Angela: If you don't have an awesome career game plan, you might get dinged. I'm Angela Guido, the founder of Career Protocol, and we're here to rescue your career game plan.
Prefer to read? Here’s the transcript:
The Road To Career Success
Today, we're talking career game plans. It is a very popular topic on MBA Monday, because it's something that so few people understand and do incredibly well in their MBA applications. If you can submit a career game plan, in other words, your plan for your career future – including the MBA and beyond – you will hugely differentiate yourself from the competition. So especially if you come from a very challenged and big demographic, like our special guest today does, then you definitely need to have an amazing, and more importantly, inspiring career game plan. Today I have with me Aziz Lalljee, Career Protocol's career coaching guru. Career Protocol’s – what do we call you Aziz? – Career Protocol’s?
Aziz Lalljee: I'm a challenging, big demographic. That's the way to do it.
AG: We call him the Career Whisperer, the Chief Career Officer. He's the guy at Career Protocol that will help you truly nail your career game plan, not only for essays, but for the rest of your life. Thanks so much for joining us today, Aziz.
AJ: Hi, Angela. It is such a pleasure to join you this morning. I’m Aziz Lalljee. I'm an Entrepreneur, a Career Coach and a Senior Instructor at Career Protocol.
Let me start by telling you my approach to the career game plan. And it's a very little simple insight. And then let me tell you two tricks on how to apply that insight. The very simple insight is: you need to think in terms of human outcomes that you want to achieve, rather than industry, job or function. So quite literally, think about who you want to help, how you want to help them and why you want to help them. For example, if you want to improve the educational outcomes for 100 hundred million women in the developing world, that's excellent. Focus on why you want to do that. And only later down the road, think about how you might want to do that as an education focused consultant to Dalberg, followed by starting your own nonprofit focused on education for underrepresented and underserved women. So that's the first outlook, the first insight here. Focus on human outcomes and your superpower to achieve those human outcomes.
What Can You Do When Starting On Your Career Goals?
AG: Can you give our MBA Monday watchers some tips on how they can operationalize that as they're thinking through their career goals?
AJ: Absolutely. Tips, I have two.
- First of all, ask yourself the hundred-million-dollar question, and that goes somewhat like this. Imagine you had one hundred million dollars in the bank and all your personal, financial, social, familial needs were all met. Once you got crazy travel and adventure out of your system, what would you actually wake up in the morning and do? What would you actually spend your time, money, effort on? That answer is probably what you should be doing in your career and we at Career Protocol, offer you a structured process of introspection and research where you project those values onto what the world needs, in a form the world can use, and that is ultimately really powered uniquely by a top MBA degree. So that's the first tip, it's hundred-million-dollar question.
- The second one comes in a few stages and I like to call it the backward march. So, ask yourself the question now – you're 95 years old, you're looking back on your life at your legacy – what fundamental idea, outcome, initiative did you advance in your time on Earth and for whom? OK? Try and find that answer. Then go back a little bit. Then say you're at the peak of your career. You’re 45, 50, 55. What organizations are you leading? What companies or initiatives are you running to advance this idea and this outcome? And more importantly, what unique attributes your skills – or superpowers, as I like to call them – are you leading with? Now, move back a little bit and then ask yourself what first few jobs in the five, 10, 15 years after your MBA are you using to build these skills, these attributes, these networks. Now, move back one more step, and here you ask yourself, for each school, what part of their curriculum, their network, their culture will actually give you these attributes, these skills, to help you in your short and long-term goals.
AG: Amazing. So amazing I have no follow up questions. This has been MBA Monday. Just kidding, we’re not gonna do that. Aziz, you're extremely experienced at walking students through this process, and as you ask those questions, I found myself thinking, “Gosh, thank goodness I'm not applying to business school because answering those questions is extremely intimidating.”, even to me, even now. So, what piece of advice do you have for people who might be trying to go it alone?
Let’s have a conversation!
Start your journey with Career Protocol today.
Angela Guido
Student of Human Nature| Founder and
Chief Education Officer of Career Protocol