Tag: Job

Starting a New Career Journey

Afif Tabsh3 Comments

crossroad1Dear Friends and Readers,

For those who don’t know my career journey so far, here it is.

I come from an IT background, and more than 4 years ago, I took a Project Management Professional (PMP) course at the American University of Beirut – Continuing Education Center (AUB-CEC) in partnership with CMCS Lebanon.

Building on that, I went for the exam and became a certified PMP. In the mean time, the trainer who gave me the course, who eventually became a close and trusted friend, introduced me to the Managing Partner of CMCS. Few months later, they offered me a job at CMCS as a Consultant and that’s when I transitioned from IT into Consultancy.

3 years later, I managed to grow and develop at CMCS to become the Operations Manager in addition to having had the pleasure of delivering training courses of all kinds related to Project Management and Business Analysis, training being something I enjoy passionately. I’ve also managed to earn 3 other certifications (CBAP, PBA, GPM-b) and pursue my masters in Human Resources Management (MHRM) at AUB with a focus on Competency Models and Training Development.

This summer, and out of the blue, I got contacted by the HR of one of the big 5 consultancy firms asking me if I’m interested in joining their team based on my achievements and my LinkedIn profile.

So I went through the selection process and I’m proud to say that I’ve been given an offer, which I took.  Therefore, I submitted my resignation from CMCS and will be heading off to this firm by the end of August.

This means I’m ending a beautiful journey in a company I’ve grown to love and respect its team, its professionalism and its achievements. It’s a hard decision to leave something you are doing well at, but at the same time, sometimes one got to think numerous steps ahead.

In addition to that, I’m not only transitioning out of CMCS, but I’m also leaving the country, which is a major career and life-style change. It’s a leap of faith, and I surely hope it’ll pay off in terms of career growth, more challenges and opening new doors.

I’m proud to say, as of September 1, 2015, I’ll be having a managerial position in the Advisory and Consultancy team at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in their Riyadh Office!

As a final note, I want to thank everyone who supported me in this journey of growth and I’m glad to have met everyone I worked with, partnered with, volunteered with and given a training to anywhere around the globe!

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Three Elements for Career Resonance

Afif Tabsh2 Comments

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I’ve found that there are 3 key elements that can help you choose the career that will allow you to be happy and productive to reach your career resonance. However, I would like to start by explaining what I mean by resonance. According to HyperPhysics, resonance in physics and sound systems refers to the natural frequency of vibration, determined by the physical parameters of the vibrating object, at which it reaches peak vibratory performance (2000).

Now let me explain how resonance applies our careers by elaborating on the 3 key elements.

Aptitude

This is our capacity to adequately perform a specific type of work. It is influenced by our thoughts and preferences (pragmatic or creative, multi-functioning or single functioning, numeric or wordy, extrovert or introvert…etc). So, the first critical step is to know our self which could actually be done by taking psychometric tests like Myers-Briggs, Jung Typology, MBTI and others. In conclusion, knowing our personal aptitude will help us identify what makes us tick hence our “natural frequency of vibration”.

Type of Work

This element is about knowing what type of tasks we enjoy. A job usually contains numerous types of tasks, not all of them which are pleasant. Thus, it’s important to know which type of tasks we really enjoy: is it dealing with people,developing content, building mathematical models, or doing research? Once we are able to actually list the type of tasks that we enjoy then we’d probably have narrowed down the type of jobs that we’ll apply to. Therefore, knowing our preferences in terms of type of work will allow us to choose the type of work that is in tune with our personal aptitude.

Work Environment

Last but not least is the work environment: the actual place you’re working in. Some of us enjoy a 9 to 5 job, others prefer a more flexible schedule. Some people prefer to work in big teams, others prefer small groups. Some prefer to work in a well-structured big company, while others prefer a more dynamic and less bureaucratic small company. All those play a major factor in making us comfortable to do the type of work we like to do.

Knowing the type of work environment that suits us allows us to really pinpoint the places we prefer to work in and thus complete the chain of “Career Resonance”.

So as an example, here is my own breakdown of the 3 elements:

Personal Aptitude Type of work Work Environment
  • Multi-tasking person
  • Extrovert
  • Night Owl
  • Pragmatic
  • Fast paced
  • Hyper focused
  • High emotional intelligence
  • Bad Memory
  • Un-interested in routine/mundane tasks
  • Challenge Seeker
  • Researching & writing
  • Setting strategies and plans & follow up on their implementation
  • Training
  • Consulting
  • Mentoring
  • Coordinating numerous team members and tasks
  • Individual work if it requires focus and a fast pace
  • Teamwork when it is about ongoing tasks/responsibilities
  • Prefer small teams and minimal bureaucracy
  • Friendly/family like work environment where professionalism isn’t about rigidity
  • Flexible work schedule, with possibility of work-at-home over-night

So as you can see, using the above 3 elements to find the right career for me in the right work environment is definitely a challenge.However, I’m already in a workplace that fulfills quite a lot of the above; thus I’m being able to achieve much more than in my previous job , Also, despite all the challenges and risks that I had to take to start achieving my career resonance, it was absolutely worth it!

The same applies to you.So, go ahead and define your preferences and needsand make your choice to leap towards your career resonance.