Are you Meant to Be a Lifetime Careerist?
This blog is a part of AbleAlly’s 21st Century Manifesto that aims to help you choose the right career path based on psychological inclinations.
“Get a decent job with a lucrative package and you’ll be deemed as successful!”
Study, learn, find a job, and earn for the rest of your life. Sounds like the easiest way to earn respect in society, right?
While the scenario might seem like a rat race to many, this path is, in fact, suitable for a large part of the population, without them knowing that they are a true careerist.
The discussion around entrepreneurship has inflated at a level that folks in our generation have forgotten about success as an intrapreneur.
Entrepreneurship might seem like ‘the coolest thing to do’, but being a careerist is equally rewarding, too.
In this blog, we will cover what being a real intrapreneur is like, address common misconceptions and will also tell you about how to check if you are meant to be a lifetime intrapreneur and become successful in the long run.
Who is a True Careerist or an Intrapreneur?
“Just excelling at a job profile doesn’t make you a true careerist. It takes more than fulfilling job responsibilities.”
A careerist or an intrapreneur is more than an employee. An intrapreneur is like an organization’s basic building block who runs, improves, and elevates a structure or a system while embedding innovation at his/her own level.
Think of people like Tim Cook, or Sundar Pichai. They used their knowledge, skills, and expertise to improve their company’s offerings and in turn, their own career graphs. That’s what a true intrapreneur does.
A real intrapreneur stays within an organization, executes responsibilities, and leverages his/her innovative mindset to take the company to the next level. Intrapreneurs are highly-motivated team players who keep objectives, over and above anything else- even personal responsibilities.
If we look at the big five personality model, people who score high on agreeableness, neuroticism and conscientiousness are the real intrapreneurs. They are more organized, responsible, goal-oriented and trustworthy.
Being a Careerist Isn’t Bad: Breaking the Common Misconceptions
Working on a full-time job is often looked down upon, by peers who are bit by the ‘startup bug’. They see a careerist as someone who isn’t open to take risks, hence, won’t be rewarded well in the long run.
Instead, a careerist is a person who is quite organized, determined and can work on something for a longer term than a ‘self-acclaimed entrepreneur’. Some misconceptions about being a careerist in the world of pseudo-entrepreneurship include:
- Regular 9–5 jobs are boring
Jobs are never boring or soul-draining. It is always a person’s perception towards them.
Every job is important, no matter how small. And they are fun too, when you aren’t focused on finding the flaws within an organization and instead focused on what you’re good at.
A careerist understands that a routine job is honing his/her skills and making him better.
He/she is an important cog in the organizational machinery, which is meant to achieve bigger things in the future, just like an entrepreneur building something phenomenal.
The excitement of being part of a big team working towards a common goal is enough for a true careerist to keep going.
- All one does in a job are repetitive tasks
Several people think that having a job means doing ‘regular’ paperwork or ‘monotonous’ tasks. However, the same isn’t true to a large extent.
True that some segments see an employee as someone who can do the same task again and again, like an assembly line. But in 2021, most jobs are mentally stimulating and challenging.
With the rise in the number of entrepreneurs and startups, there is a high demand for intrapreneurs who can take charge and work as independent consultants within an organization to help them achieve something substantial.
In fact, intrapreneurship is better than the self-discovery route in many cases as there is a fixed goal and a structured path with equally challenging tasks like an entrepreneur.
Who is a real careerist?
Skills that define careerist and intrapreneurs
Intrapreneurs are amazing team players who have strong conscientiousness abilities. They are disciplined and focused, too. In fact, a real careerist has positive traits within your personality.
You can easily determine if being a careerist is for you or now using the Intrapreneurial Skill Matrix.
Intrapreneurial Skill Matrix
Learnability | Adaptability | Diligence | Commitment | Fighting Streak | Self-motivated | Focused
If a person has the above skills within his/her personality and can club them with assertiveness, and ability to cope up with stress, he/she can be a great careerist with an amazing future.
Stop chasing goals set by others, even if they appear more lucrative (being your own boss, the chase for entrepreneurship, etc.)
If your personality isn’t meant for something, there is no chance you can use your skills to your advantage. Instead, focus on what’s meant for you, and learn to take the right path, based on your psychology, and inherent skills.
Being a careerist and owning your career path with pride is a great virtue. Still, if you’re confused if it will be the right path or not, we at AbleAlly help you decide. Get in touch now
