What Does Google Say About Your Future Career?
Anders Liu-Lindberg
Leading advisor to senior Finance and FP&A leaders on creating impact through business partnering | Interim | VP Finance | Business Finance
It’s graduation time and young students are about to take their first steps into a new career. Choosing a career can be one of the most important choices of your life and while you may not care what others think about the career you want to choose you can easily find out. How do you ask? Well, just ask Google or Bing. Let’s say you want to become a policeman but not sure how their reputation is these days simply open your browser and type “Policemen are†and Google will show you some instant results based on what other people have searched.
Below you can find the top 4 results for policemen but you can easily try it with any other profession. Clearly the results on policemen are not unanimous as they are heroes, corrupt or stupid.
Years ago when I had to choose my profession I didn’t rely on search engines but I actually tried out various professions myself. Not least Finance and HR. You can read here why in the end I chose Finance over HR. One particular stereotype I’ve written quite a bit about is accountants so let’s take a look at what Google and Bing suggest's here. Clearly there’s a lot of discussion going on regarding the accountant stereotype. Are they boring or not boring? Are they overpaid, underpaid or just plain rich? There’s obviously no right or wrong answer here but at least you can get an idea of what perceptions you might need to overcome once you set your sights on a specific career.
Choosing a career is important as said and you obviously should be doing a lot more research than just random Google and Bing searches before you lock yourself in. I strongly recommend trying out various professions while studying so you can see for yourself how it’s like to work in let’s say HR. Is it actually useless or worthless and even your enemy?
I can only speak for myself but working 14 months in an HR department I didn’t find it neither useless nor worthless but I certainly did see many people having that perception. So I jumped back to Finance but later on realized that many actually thinks the same about Finance. So I've spent a large part of my still short career trying to convince co-workers and professionals in general from other functions that finance people and accountants can actually add a lot of value to your business. Whether or not people like your chosen profession it’s much more important if you like it yourself. Then you can also convince others afterwards once you show them what a kick-ass job you do.
How did you decide on your career? Have you had to overcome many stereotypes? As always leave a comment to get the discussion going or simply like or share to spread the message that choosing a career should not be taken lightly. It could end up sticking with you for the rest of your life.
Please continue reading below for more posts about your career.
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Anders Liu-Lindberg is the Regional Finance Business Partner for Maersk Line North Europe and is working with the transformation of Finance and business on a daily basis. Anders has participated in several transformation processes amongst others helping Maersk Drilling to go Beyond Budgeting and transformed a finance team from Bean-counters to Business Partners. He would love the chance to collaborate with you on your own transformation processes to help you stay out of disruption. If you are looking for more advice on how to get the most of LinkedIn Anders also has a few tips to share as well as if you want help in your job search. Don’t be shy! Let’s get in touch and start helping each other.
Hospitality Leader - Author
8yI always knew I wanted to be in hospitality. I don't know how or why, it just drew me in. I got out of it for 5 years, but found myself missing it. Unfortunately, the business is changing so it may not be a career anymore, but the lessons have been invaluable. One note: Be careful of your internet searches as the results are often served up based on your past search history. One might want to try duckduckgo or another private browser to avoid any bias.
Experienced Professional Proofreader, Translator, Editor (English <> Dutch, French > Dutch), Possibility coach, Historian
8yHi Anders, agreed that choosing a career should not be taken lightly - but even more agreed with what you say about not caring so much what others might think about your choice, but whether you like it yourself! And that, maybe unfortunately, is mostly the old story: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Sometimes you're lucky - I didn't set out to become a coach and consultant to professionals ( I used to be a historian), but it's been a very rewarding and fulfilling career so far.
Leading advisor to senior Finance and FP&A leaders on creating impact through business partnering | Interim | VP Finance | Business Finance
8yThanks for commenting and sharing your story Kristina! Just about to leave for Chennai, India via Dubai so will get back with a more lengthy reply tomorrow!
Professional Resume Writer l LinkedIn Profile SEO l Global Experience l Resumes that Land Interviews l l Resume Writing Workshops l LinkedIn Top Resume Voice & Job Search Voice l Business Writing Seminar
8yfascinating, Anders. I suggest that people follow your suggestions not so much to learn their profession's rep as to suss out what it's future prospects are. (and for the record, the world is less well off because you chose not to go into HR!)