Before we dive into the session today, I just wanted to give a brief background of my career and why I think career development is important and being intentional is important.I embarked on a career index sector a few years ago, hoping to make a significant contribution and to the field admin and the work. I do and throughout my journey I encountered many challenges where I had to deal with stereotypes, buyouts as our discrimination from the place where I work with and the coworkers. So, in general, I struggle basically what I was doing mainly because of the, some, discriminations and finding the mentors and role models could guide me and support me in those career path. So despite these difficulties, I never gave up the passion and goals. So, I learned to stand for myself and to speak my ideas. I learned to network and develop that, mentors around me and Elise who could suffer me and help me in advancing my career.

And I took up the various projects and roles which, challenged me at the same time, helped me build my career, and that's where, all that helped me to lead to this role where I'm doing, I'm trying to help more people now and have all, like, mentor more women and help them in their future roles.

So through these experiences or through my career journey, over the last few good few years. I discovered that career development is not something that happens by luck or by chance and it needs an intention, planning and action to be taken. That's the reason I thought it is a good one to share and to help all of you. Whoever is interested. And, so I'm 2 of these session. Basically, we'll be discussing about the strategies and tips, what helped me and how you could leverage in your day to day things. Okay. Just checking. Yeah, good. I can see. That's Sorry. I just want to make sure there's nothing in the chat. Probably, I'll pick up the queries at the end. I'll continue with the slides to start with. So, carrier development is constant.

What I've seen is, like, be it in current role, like, whatever we are doing, we always want to grow and be like, want to learn something new. You want to build in that role what you are in. Right? So, so it's not about looking for what to do next always, but, first thing is always building up in where you are. So, having that solid performance being known for a good great team player and having that right skill and right network around you, that that's where the good start is always. So, whichever phase you are in, 1st billing in place is the key. And the next one becomes, this advancing in the roles. So if you want to, if you are looking to, pursue a level up in the next row, the same role like, you want to become from a, like, a junior to senior kind of thing.

Understanding that expectations and what the next lead role next your goal has. I'm trying to see that how you can showcase some of those abilities well ahead so that you convince the next, manager or whoever is the person responsible for promoting you or giving you that next role that you are capable of it So that that's more about understanding the things, what you need, to advance in the to the role.

New role is about sometimes you are in a profession where you want to switch roles or you want to switch your profession or you want to start advancing to your role, which is maybe 1 or 2 levels up, but you want to do something which would help you like doing a degree or something.

So, how can we do achieve all this? Right? So, if it is about advancing into new role, there are some things which you could do it's more of, like, understanding what are the, carriers available if you are trying switch to the new role. If you are in trying to if you are in a career phase where you are trying to build in the same role or, advancing in this role then you're fine. But if you are looking into advancing into new role, then I think probably understanding what that role is. So career sites is one place generally to understand what the market is like, what are the roles in demand, and how you can leverage your skill set. Current sales skill set into that new role and things like that.

And informational tags is more about trying to speak to the people who are in the role looking to do, trying to network, with the people who can lead you to that new role. And basically trying to figure out, the contacts who could help you to reach that new role and who could give you the relevant information as well. So networking becomes the key part here. Basically, like, whatever role you are trying to, I think that people are the best. Best in place to help or put you in touch are are sometimes share you the relevant information as well. So once you know what you are doing either, what kind of work stage of career you are in, and what you want to do basically, how you want to grow. It's them. It's all about putting a plan in place. Basically, right? How will you get there next? Okay. So the thing is, like, you might have an aspiration.

Like, I want to be doing this in next 10 years. Okay? But how do you get there in next 10 years? It's not going to happen just like that. Right. We need to work towards it and having that plan of what am I going to do in the next 2 years or 5 years or 10 years is something, I think, having that aspiration and then thinking it a little, deeper. Like, how do I how will I achieve that? Is there something we need to be working on as part of the plan and obviously, the aspirations could be something like, which could be relevant to your carrier interest, and you may have the skills that means you could reach there faster, or if sometimes you need to acquire new skill and may not be in the field where you are working on or you may not have enough experiences, or even sometimes, some aspirational roles would be that you may have to relocate or you might have to change, your personal personal location.

Basically, you might have to relocate it location or, things like that. So, basically, understanding your aspiration and how you can make it work for yourself I think that that makes the key thing when we start putting a career plan. Later down the line, I'll show a template, but I'm trying to explain mainly that having a clarity of these things, we'll make it more clear when we start putting a plan and when we want to work together on that. And the strengths and developments, right, once you know what you want to do, like, like, my aspiration would be like in next 2 years. I want to jump on to your role where I would be working with, like I strategic customers in UK at NCX level. Okay? That would mean like what is that I would need from my this role to the next role, what are the strengths I have currently, and what is the development area I see in myself, right?

Having that clarity on what is that I can develop so that I have the right, ability when I get on to that next role. Right? So those are the things I think identifying your strengths and at the same time identifying your development areas and how you can work in that development areas, basically, in the given timeline, like what you are setting it for yourself, so that you can help yourself better, basically.

And and generally, once you know the development areas, what I've seen is, with the people I mentor as well, you know, what are the things you can go and do basically like the program you can go or the trainings you can do or any educational courses you want to do or any specific kind of networking.

Area where you don't have people where you do not interacting with people where you can develop yourself. So many things, I think, will fall in place basically once you know what is the development area where you need to work on for that particular role you are aiming for in next few years. And opportunities. Yeah. Now that, yeah, we know the strengths. We have been working for that next role, what we are looking for. Right? Then how do you find the opportunity? Yeah. Sometimes most of the times, I think it's very easy to network internally in the company where you are and identify the opportunities internally and all to make people aware that you are someone looking for the role so that the vendor opportunity comes up, they know that you are being working off for it.

So that you are on top of the mind for them or making sure your manager is aware and things like that. At the same time, I think having that right contacts outside as well, if you are trying to look for some roles So having that industry visibility and what's happening in the industry and the opportunities outside, I'm not saying like you keep applying for jobs, but all I'm saying is having that visibility on what's happening and having the right people aware of what you are trying to aim for internally in the organization, what's, takes a long way, generally.

And with my experience, I have seen it help, and not only to me, the people I've mentored and coached, And once we have all this, right, the action plan, basically, is like, what is that we will do? Like, and if you're gonna give it to 2 year timeline, what am I going to do every 3 months or every 6 months to achieve to what I'm going to the level of what I'm aiming for. Right? So that's where the action plan comes in and action plan is not only us doing it. It's, again, you need a good cooperation from the team. You work with the manager and people around you who are, who you're working with day to day. But you being intentional about your development areas and having an action plan to work on it make you a clear focus on what you are trying to aim for and how you are trying to tune your career in next few years, basically. So once that carrier development plan, basically, the that template, I'll put it in in few minutes.

But, once that plan is there, still the build part, that means how do you build a as a person. Right? So there are key things to be done as part of the building, bins in networking, yes, it is important and having the right people to help support, mentor, coach. Yes. All this comes through networking. So identify yourself a mentor who could help you, improve the areas, identify a sponsor who would vouch you or speak for you in your absence, when there is an opportunity in a room where they are, they could recommend you and things like that. And be part of an employee. If you are a partner organizations where there are a lot of employee groups are where there is an opportunities you can participate or contribute.

Doing that will also help you gain the visibility as a person. And so that by word-of-mouth, you you are able to land a job, basically. So these are the key things when we come look into networking. The visibility again comes a lot through network. Again, having the one is obviously, you need to have the right expertise. You need to be good at what you're doing, making the job, what you're doing today and and at the same time, you need to give that confidence to the people whom you are. Aiming to pitch for your next role, right, that you you would be able to do it in the future, but the visibility is like building up whatever you are doing today, you know, be good at it, and you need to show that you are the key player in the team where you are in. And that visibility will take you a long way with the right network around and skills. Yeah. Obviously. Yeah.

We all have skills, but based on what we are trying to do today or you want to grow, it could vary. The requirements of skills could change. So constantly trying to learn, those right skills or updating your skills becomes important. And always I've seen is the accomplishments, right? We are all good at doing things. We do a lot of things. Okay. We do a great job. But we never talk about it. And probably we forget very easily as well. So if someone comes and asks me, what what are the good things you did in classic months. Probably, I don't have track of all the things I did. I mean, remember very few on top of my mind, but not everything. Right? And this is where I think we as a woman should, ambassador ourselves better. So having track of the things what we did and at least speaking for, like, whenever there's an opportunity sharing about what you have done, And and probably this is not only about telling what we have done.

It would inspire others. I've seen people like they are so inspired when I tell them I've done this. They want to do it. They've asked me, like, can you pitch me to an can you connect me to that person or that area? Whoever is leading that so that I can use that work as well. So so keeping track of your accomplishments is key at the same time sharing them whenever you get an opportunity, will help, you and the people around you. So it's, it's not only it's not being selfish. I would say it's being a good team player. And the development and template I've been talking. Right? This is the simple template, I would say.

I would recommend highly all of you to think about the things I've been talking about, your strengths, your development areas, and the actions what you would take based on the goals, what you're going to set for yourself in the short term, medium term, or long term. It may not be like would be working for your long term goal will be a short term goal. It's good enough based on your carrier aspirations, but everything, I think what I felt is like every goal you have needs some work behind the scenes so that you land there fast quicker and smoother. So, have, just putting down the things, giving 2 minutes to think on what you want to do in the next 2 years. And then once you think, what should I be doing as part of the development areas? What I have? Or maybe I'm good at everything. These are my strengths. Then obviously, if you think you have everything, then it is very easy to go under your manager or whoever you have been response group to promote you. Right?

See, I've been doing so. That's a great job, and I have all the strengths. And, I think I can do it better. Right? So, this plan, basically, the career development plan is not only to help yourself but to help your managers or the people whom you are pitching yourself to to see your strengths and the amount of work, what you have done are going to do. As part of the development and it, and if possible, if you could keep track of, like, what you've been doing on every 3 months if you revise and keep track of all the areas you've done and things like that, right? If you look back for after a year on your plan, you see there's so much progress you have made. And if you're talking the same to someone else, there would be a thing convinced how you're being working on the things and how you are aiming for a particular role. Right?

That's where I think and all this, having the bike information in place and having the clarity on what we want to achieve helps not only us and, but pitching ourselves to the person who have been. We are pitching for the role. Right? So that's the thing. So I would highly recommend all of you to look at the template. And I'll I'll share a link as well in the chat. Please download and fill it and use it and to create one for yourself. And that's me. Any questions? I I'll just put the link for the template. Yeah. If you can if yeah. And, on the slides, I put my LinkedIn profile as well. If any of you want to connect, feel free to him. And I don't see any questions in the chat. So I hope, if you're more empowered and motivated to that action on your career and be intentionally in your development, and you all will time.

I'm also hoping you all will join me in the mission of mentoring and supporting more women in tech and creating a more diverse and inclusive culture in tech Industry. Yeah. Thanks for being here today, and thanks for listening.