There is no short cut when it comes to establishing and mapping your career path in logistics and supply chain management. Remember this is not only for University or college logistics and supply chain graduates alone.
It doesn’t matter, you can change your carrier at any stage for your own reasons and decide to join the logistics and supply chain industry. OK, it’s your choice but remember the game of changing your career is dictated by your age….. don’t get into trouble for the rest of your life by changing your career.
If you are changing your career for a good reason you still have time to make it.
The logistics and supply chain management career has a very complex network which needs a full set of combined skills and longtime experience. For you to become an expert and a leader in this industry you have to undergo through career transformation stages. This works like a ”metamorphosis”. before reaching maturity in your logistics and supply chain career you have several distinct stages to pass through.
Professionals have no choice but to undergo this process for them to be competent supply chain leaders of value who can be responsible for not only a logistics department in an organization but the overall Supply chain Management of the entire organization.
To lay this kind of concrete-like foundation for your career in this industry is not about knowing it all but seeking to know it through developing an ultimate passion for both your work no matter your current position in terms of remunerations, designation, your current experience or the size of the company.
As professionals it is important to understand that the logistics and supply chain industry deals with processes and operations execution day in day out and for you to reach the maturity stage it takes years of experience in working in different areas in logistics, playing different roles, training on new changes in the industry and advancing your studies to position yourself in the top management.
The following is the most sensitive stage of determining your career path in the logistics and supply chain industry.
The first job experience in a logistics role.
Most of the people lose the compass of their career direction at this point. This is where you can create or kill the passion for your career through feeling intimidated because you have no experience in your new job. This definitely makes you lose your self-esteem and end up feeling demotivated and uncomfortable with whatever you’re doing because it is new to you.
Nevertheless, every expert passed through the same path. Therefore, this is the time you have to love even working for more hours, getting to understand the processes by asking a lot of questions pertaining to everything new which comes in your way. This time you have to engage your mind in translating what you learned in the University college to the job you are doing. Find a mentor, an experienced person who has been there before you to show you how things are done and follow instructions keenly and carefully.
For the new professionals at this stage, they should engage with the people more than the process. At this level don’t ever hang around with work colleagues who their song of the day is complaining about their work, these people will kill your career passion.
- Multitask as much as you can across the roles in your department.
- ask as many questions as possible.
- Be loyal to the company.
- Respect your fellow workmates.
- like more responsibilities.
- Learn the process and repeat it by yourself.
- Show interest in the job you are doing.
- Like being identified with your good performance at your work.
- Show up in time during meetings and ask as many questions as possible.
If you apply all these principles, you will definitely navigate smoothly to the maturity level of your career in logistics and supply chain management and at the end of it all, you become a leader in the industry. It doesn’t matter how long you have worked as junior staff.
