Profession of Faith

Sir, did you just say Marketing? I..i graduated with a science degree and I.. stuttering again. The seasoned Human Resource Director interrupted my juvenile comments and analysis when he emphatically made his response. ‘Young lady, you will be a Management Trainee in Marketing because that is where your strength lies’. In close to two decades of my heeding the director’s advice I must say I have no regrets at all. I have had to sharpen my social science skills and literally now cannot ‘balance’ a simple scientific chemical equation anymore! No regrets at all I say!

by Hannah Oyebanjo

Career change is a situation where you alter your profession as it were. It’s a trained Nurse becoming an Admin Manager or a Banker becoming a trained Teacher.

Making a career change usually means investing both your time and money. As with any investment, it’s important to be informed before you make it. You need to consider the following points before making a career change.

Tips For Career Change

Before you begin thinking about making a career change you have to decide whether you actually need one. You have to assess yourself and decide if you truly need a career change. You may just need to change your current job which is simpler than an entire career change. • Why are you unhappy about your current job? Where and what is the challenge? Is it in your core function or organizational/hygiene issues? • You will need to evaluate your values, skills, personality and interests if you decide to change your career. • Make a list of occupations to explore: Identify occupations you may have considered previously and that you find appealing. • Set your goals and develop a career action plan. • Train for your new career and quit the current one: Changing your career may mean you have to undergo some training. That could take the form of earning a degree, doing an internship or taking courses to learn some new skills.

Tips For Negotiating A Better Salary

1. Don’t be Arrogant. There’s a fine line between projecting confidence and appearing or being arrogant. No matter how much you think you deserve more, you need to convince your boss that it’s in the company’s best interest to give you one.

2. Don’t tell stories. Keep your personal challenges to yourself and concentrate on demonstrating why your services are worth more than you’re being paid. No employer is interested in your numerous dependants; remember that he probably has more in this environment!

3. Don’t be rude. You need a load of self control so you’re not mad at your boss who you consider inconsiderate. Your feelings may be justified, but that doesn’t mean you should share them with your boss. When asking for a raise, you want to prove you’re an asset to the company. Outward displays of anger will only make you look unprofessional and unstable.

4. Don’t demand to be paid as

much as a co-worker. It’s annoying and painful to discover that one of your colleagues is getting more than you to perform the same job, but don’t assume that confronting your supervisor will lead to parity. You may not be privy to all the information. Chances are, your co-worker has been in the industry longer or has an advanced degree that the company deems valuable.

5. Don’t threaten to quit. Why would your boss invest in an employee poised to jump ship? Threatening to walk out sends the message that you are not committed to the company, which makes you a bad bet. However, there’s nothing wrong with using a competing offer as a bargaining tool when you ask for a raise.

Tips For Moving To The Next Level

There is nothing as frustrating in career as been stuck on a level. It is worse still when your boss thinks you do not deserve a promotion. Promotion is also the easiest way to get fired if unprepared and unqualified. A junior colleague of mine once got a juicy appointment with another organization. He was able to negotiate a good package for a very senior position. He became the toast of everyone around - a whiz kid the news made rounds. A few of us who were close to him had serious worries based on our knowledge of his competencies. He had to hurriedly resign the appointment barely two years after because he could not deliver on his promises. He has since fizzled out of circulation.

It’s time to reevaluate your situation to understand why you seem to be stuck on the last rung of the corporate ladder.

1. Did you make it known that you wanted the pro-

motion? You have to be aggressive. Ask and you may receive. Some organizations do not have internal processes that indicate career path and succession plan. You may need to speak up.

2. Are you realistic?

Are you qualified? Sometimes -- especially in today’s business environment -- you may need to make a lateral move to position yourself for a later upward move. My career graph is full of lateral moves within related functions. All such moves eventually resulted in upward climbs.

3. Self-confidence and self-as-

suredness is a must when climbing the corporate ladder. You need to find subtle ways of blowing your trumpet. Detail how the company has benefited from your ideas and suggestions and will only benefit further by giving you greater responsibilities and

Making a career change usually means investing both your time and money.

duties. You need to learn how to creatively sell yourself without sounding loud.

4. Getting a promotion can of-

tentimes be a competition. You will have to fight for what you want – but fight fair. Loyalty plays an important role in getting a promotion. Being a loyal employee, co-worker or supervisor will only make advancement in the workplace easier. Decisions for promotion are no longer based solely on competencies at certain levels as that is assumed to be okay. Loyalty therefore plays a stronger role. Please remember the difference between loyalty and overkill. You do not have to be everyone’s best friend. It is more important to be well-respected than well-liked.

You will need to evaluate your values, skills, personality and interests if you decide to change your career.

A man for all Seasons

by Tunji Adeyinka

If there was a man in the Bible who understood the principle of seasons, it was King Solomon.

‘To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven.’

Trust Solomon to know a lot about seasons and times. He went through the cycle. A time to be born. A time to weep. A time to laugh and a time to ‘marry’. Solomon sure spent a lot of time marrying: with 700 wives and 300 concubines . Imagine what the priests would have done each time

Solomon wanted to marry another wife. Maybe the priests would have produced an abridged version of the marriage vows for Solomon.

After considering everything, the wise king concludes thus; ‘Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.’ Ecclesiastes 1:2. A lesson to all those who think a new wife will solve their problems. Solomon did it many times over and still was not happy. This edition of the magazine is coming out around November. There is a sudden realization that another year is coming to an end. This is a unique time of the year. So, as a man, when you look back at the year, you are probably thinking; ‘What is the outcome of my journey this year?’

‘Do I really have a reason to celebrate this season?’

You probably changed jobs, were promoted or remained in the same position started your own business, lost your business, lost your marriage, lost your companion, maybe you have been diagnosed with some disease, or you lost a lot of money in a transaction that did not go well, maybe you have lost a child, or your possessions in a scam or a robbery incidence, maybe you have lost your job, and so you have lost your position as the breadwinner in the family. The list of maybes are endless. These times are called low seasons and I am sure many of us have been through this at one time or the other.

No matter what you have been through this year, be assured that God is with you. You have just gone through some ‘exercise session’ to build some muscles and lose some excess weight. The outcome for you is a leaner, fitter, stronger man with the right muscles in the right places. I am not talking philosophy here, I am talking scriptures. As a man, it is important you build these spiritual muscles because you will definitely need them for some seasons of life.

If you understand this principle, then you will understand that venting out your frustration on your family in low seasons is unfair, unproductive and sinful. It shows that you have given room to worry. You have just lost your job or you have lost a promotion and suddenly in the home you begin to talk to your wife and children in mono-syllables.

‘ What would you like to eat?’

‘Nothing’

‘Did you enjoy the meal?’

‘Yes’

‘What is the problem?’

‘Nothing’!

‘Would you like to…’

‘Please can I have some peace?’

Some men will actually go as far as expressing their frustration by raising their hands against their wives.

‘She does not understand the complexity of the situation’ He says.

If she does not understand the complexity because she is ‘weaker’, do you think God might understand the ‘complexities?’ If you think that God might understand, why not hand it back to Him and give some assurance to your family?

Whatever you might have lost or failed to attain. The Lord is the reason you have not lost every thing. I have realised that if God is with you in your boat, He will always make a way. If you have Him in your boat, you always have a reason to celebrate every season.

Even when things are not going the way you planned.

‘I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath made everything beautiful in His time; also He hath set the world in their heart so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.’ Eccl 3: 10-11

By the way, do you realize that not telling your spouse about the details of the situation at work or the issues you are going through and carrying all the problems on your shoulders this No matter what you have been through this year, be assured that God is with you. You have just gone through some ‘exercise session’ to build some muscles and lose some excess weight.

season is actually under-utilising the resource that God gave you as your help-meet?

When Adam said that Eve was the bone of his bones, he did not mean that she should be relegated to physical issues only; such as the kitchen and other domestic issues. Have you noticed that when you discuss some of these ‘complex’ issues with your wife, the kind of insight that she brings to the table is so unbelievably revealing that you begin to understand why God said that the woman complements the man and vice versa. Sometimes, you look at your wife and you almost ask. ‘ How did she know that’? A woman meets your business partner for the first time and tells you that there is something about that man that she is not at peace with.

‘What do you mean’, says the man ‘I don’t know, I just think you need to be careful’, says the woman.

Three months down the line, you conclude the deal, the money is paid and then you really know the business partner you are dealing with. You wish you had listened to your wife. Of course, your business partner takes you to the cleaners, and you come home and keep quiet. You cannot tell your wife what happened. You are too much of a man to accept that your wife was right.

So as a man of honour regardless of what may or may not have happened

This is a season to thank God for all He has done this year. To remember that He can still do more before the end of the year. To share the victories and disappointments of the year with Him ( He knows them already) and to let Him deal with the seasons. ‘For he had dominion over all the region…….. and he had peace from all sides round about him’

May the Lord grant you peace in this season. Amen.

He made the storm stop and the sea be quiet. - Psalm 107:29 (CEV)