Onwards and Upwards

This year is going to be a year of progress. I know of it, not because I’m wishing for some sky-fairy to make my life brilliant, but because I’ve put in quite a bit of work into making this year better than last.

I’ve applied for my masters degree and I received an offer. I’m now enrolled for a Master of Commerce (Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations) degree starting in April. A bit early considering that I graduated not two years ago,  but the job market for graduates is crawling and I don’t intend to waste more time while searching for work. Something that I particularly enjoy about this situation is that this year I’m in a win-win position; either I get a job, or I get a degree (or both) and either option is a solid step forward in my career.

This year I’m also networking. If only I networked as well with other people as I do systems. It’s something I’m working on and to make things better, I’m building a personal HR site, with my portfolio, a display of my projects and a link to my resume. Why not? After all, I do HRIS for fun in my free time, somebody might like what they see. Either way, I’m building my personal brand.

I just want to say that a few more times before the term becomes cliché later on in the year. I know it’s going to become a bad cliché, I can feel it. My buzzword sense is tingling.

PERSONAL BRAND. PERSONAL BRAND. PERSONAL BRAND.

There. You heard it first here folks.

Actually, I first heard the term while at my internship for a large Australian property management company. They had this dude from IT who wanted to say his piece about what he feels is important in career building and he talked about the concept of personal brand. It stuck with me, as I’ve always done by best to ensure that people know me for my performance, problem solving and reliability. Those things mean a lot to me and I remember the individual saying “If it’s not going up, it’s going down”. Maintaining an image is an uphill battle, it’s not something that is set in stone and I still appreciate the talk that man gave.

Also special was a few meaningful words from a intellectual woman in Performance Management, who I had the opportunity to meet one-on-one. Her insights were about staying true to your career aspirations and ambitions to succeed. To basically not let other people or yourself pour shit over it and stay true to yourself. Also, that other people enable your success and to be appreciative of others. I’ve always been the type that makes the most of opportunities and never cries victim to circumstance, but with that said, it is true that others open those doors in some shape and form and without them, you wouldn’t have the opportunities to capitalise on in the first place. I found her candid words impacting and I’ll always remember them.

So anyway, this year I’m rolling out both an LMS (Learning Management System) and a PMS (Performance Management System) on my server to experiment on. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Projects to keep me sane, yay!