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Actually, I have some misunderstandings about career planning. Either I think that career planning is just a bunch of unreliable theories, or I believe that career planning should be like consulting a master for fortune-telling, pointing us in a clear direction. Now, we need to try to reach a consensus on two fundamental questions regarding career planning so that we can better continue with the upcoming courses. What are these two basic questions?

The first is: What problem does career planning aim to solve?
The second is: How should we effectively apply the principles of career planning?

In essence, these two questions are: What is it and how to use it?

To help everyone learn this course better, I have created some very exquisite images. Now, I would like you to look at this image. What I want to tell you is that the core issue that career planning aims to solve is the match between people and jobs, matching individuals with professions.

The aspect of people is not simple. There are at least six factors that may influence your career decision-making.

The first factor that influences decision-making is your personality: Are you more introverted or extroverted? Is your personality straightforward or meticulous? These will certainly affect your career choices.

Then there’s your ability: What are you good at? Or what potential do you have? What can you do well in the future? This is quite important, right?

Next is your resources: Who are your parents, what background do they have, how much money can they provide you, what connections can they help you with, what university did you graduate from, in which city are you located, and what friends or teachers do you have, etc. All of these are your resources.

Then there’s your personal interests: What do you like to do, or what do you particularly dislike doing? These will also affect your career choices.

Of course, another very important factor is your values. Do you care about money? Do you value freedom more than money? Do you prefer a more comfortable job or a more stressful and stimulating one? Do you like a challenging life or a more conventional one? All of these are influenced by your career values.

There are also some important others whose opinions may influence you, such as if your parents want you to pursue further studies or take a civil service exam, even if you don’t want to, but you are used to obeying your parents and care about their feelings. Or if there is a powerful person in your family who can provide you with opportunities, you might choose a job based on family interests. These are all possible.

These are the personal factors.

Then there’s the professional world: What kind of industry do you want to work in? Finance, fast-moving consumer goods, education, etc. These are all industries.

Then there are companies: large companies, small companies, state-owned enterprises, foreign enterprises, private enterprises, and even government agencies. These are all choices of companies.

Also, what kind of position do you want to hold? Human resources, finance, technology, product manager, etc. These are all choices that need to be made and judged.

Additionally, there’s the income of this job: how much does this job pay per month, how much will it pay in three years, and how much can it earn in ten years.

Then there’s the working environment: what is the company environment like, what is the industry environment like; and what future development opportunities will this job have? If done well, what opportunities will arise in the future?

Simply put, you might realize: Wow! The match between people and jobs in career planning is really not simple! Indeed, doing a good job in career planning is not an easy task. Because what kind of person you are, not only do I not know, but perhaps you don’t even know yourself; you need to explore yourself.

Besides exploring yourself, what is your professional world like? You still need to explore.

In fact, no matter what kind of person you are, no matter what opportunities exist in your professional world, when we are doing career planning, we have only two action strategies. If you do not act according to these two strategies, then no matter how much you understand the principles of career planning or the methods of career planning, it will be meaningless.

What are these two strategies?

They are: vision-based strategy and resource-based strategy. What is the difference between them? It’s simple.

If you have a clear and heartfelt career goal, then you should act according to the vision-based strategy; if you do not have a particularly clear career goal, then you should act according to the resource-based strategy.

The third image has a table comparing these two strategies.

Let’s first briefly discuss the vision-based strategy: Some people, I can only say some people, have a clear career goal. For example, they want to be entrepreneurs to make big money, want to be lawyers, judges, diplomats, university teachers, etc. These are all relatively idealized goals.

Its characteristic is that the goal is very clear, so the path will be very clear. How to become a lawyer? Take the bar exam, then intern at a law firm, and gradually become a lawyer. The growth of professions like judges and diplomats also has clear paths.

Acting according to one’s vision, these visions are usually idealized and lofty, requiring us to spend a lot of time and energy to accumulate.

The vision-based strategy is particularly suitable for professions with high thresholds, where education, knowledge accumulation, and technical requirements are high, such as lawyers, university professors, financial analysts, etc. If a profession has a low threshold, we generally wouldn’t consider it a vision, for example, most people would not consider buying insurance or driving a taxi as ideal professions.

In short, if you have a heartfelt ideal profession, you should act according to the vision strategy; this is your optimal career planning strategy. You must not think of becoming a university teacher while not wanting to pursue further studies; this is having an ideal goal but not wanting to make an effort, and the result will inevitably fail.

The second strategy is: resource strategy.

What I want to tell everyone is that the vast majority of people do not have a very clear career goal. Among the 100 people I have interacted with, no more than 10 have a clear career goal. This is actually normal; the vast majority of people do not know what they really want. They may be interested in many things, but to say they really like them may not be the case.

At this point, we must act according to the resource-based strategy. What is the resource-based strategy? Do not desperately pursue what job is suitable for me, what do I really want to do; you may not be able to figure it out. You should act based on the resources available to you in reality.

That is to say, what job opportunities do you have around you? First, choose the best one and try it out. The goal is to enhance your abilities, broaden your career perspective, and then try for better jobs.

The resource-based strategy is more pragmatic and highly efficient. The outstanding university students and accomplished corporate executives I have interacted with all follow the resource-based strategy: seizing opportunities first, allowing themselves to grow, and then continuously embracing new opportunities. This is actually the career planning strategy that suits most people.

So, today I will start by understanding the industry. Why not start by understanding yourself? Here’s a little teaser; I will tell you in the upcoming course.

The first concept I want to clarify for you is: we need to see clearly the relationship between industry, companies, and professions. Please look at the image below my audio; I have drawn a particularly elegant sketch.

Here, I want to clarify the relationship between industry, companies, and professions through a river, a boat, and a little person.

If each of us is sitting in a boat, heading towards the distance, then the river determines how big a boat can be on this river, determines whether we can be stable in the future, and determines how far we can go. This is the industry; the industry determines our long-term development and the achievements we can attain in our careers.

Besides the river, the size of the boat itself, how sturdy it is, and the captain's skill will all affect our experience while sitting in the boat. A 10,000-ton oil tanker and a small wooden board are definitely not the same. The boat represents the company, which determines our growth speed.

What role do we play on this boat? Are we the captain's assistant, or are we in the engine room stoking the boiler? This role directly affects our experience on the boat. This is our role in a company; different roles will have different job contents.

I want to use this simple cartoon to tell everyone the importance of industry, companies, and professions. So, in this lesson, we will start discussing the industry.

Please look at our third photo; we can see a comprehensive analysis of professions: industry, company, and profession. Very few people think about their career choices from the perspective of the industry. Those who can have such a perspective will have a more obvious advantage in career development because they have a clearer view of their company and position, making their actions more likely to succeed.

Please look at the fourth image; this is an officially released code for the national economic industry classification. Here you can see I, G, K, L, P, and R, which I have marked in red. The industries marked in red are those whose growth rate exceeded GDP growth last year.

This means that these industries are relatively fast-growing, resource-concentrated, and promising. What do the black ones represent? They are either retreating or stable, basically underperforming industries. This tells everyone the basic state of the industry.

Within this, there is a developmental stage of an industry. Generally speaking, we can divide an industry into four stages: dawn period, sunrise period, maturity period, and sunset period.

Let’s look at the seventh image; this image shows four key elements you must know about the industry: the size of the industry, which is the annual output value of the industry, who the top three companies in the industry are, who the industry’s influential figures are, and what associations exist in the industry. These things are not difficult to find; where can you find them?

I have prepared methods for you; please look at the eighth image. I will briefly go over it; you can visit a website called Mobile Observation Station to obtain industry data reports for free.

Next, look at the ninth image called Longyuan Journal Network; this is a website where you can read electronic journals online. It’s not bad (though it may cost a little, it’s actually quite cheap). You can learn about some information about the industry; each industry basically has its own related magazines. By looking at the companies and figures that frequently appear, you will gain a basic understanding of the industry.

Of course, there’s another place to learn about the industry, such as China National Knowledge Infrastructure, which has many papers on travel, education, etc., where you can find relevant papers to study industry reports. For example, I have prepared a screenshot of an industry report for you, which is a trend chart of the tourism industry; everyone can take a look.

What kind of boat should we board?

There are many types of boats on the river, and we can make a basic classification. Please look at the exquisite photo I prepared for you. From the perspective of organizational attributes, we can roughly divide the boats on the river into three types: one is political, one is commercial, and the other is academic. We can roughly understand that these three boats belong to three different factions; as a newcomer, you can basically only choose one faction to join.

Politics means being an official, working as a civil servant; commerce means entering enterprises, state-owned enterprises, private enterprises, and being part of the working class; academia means pursuing further studies, obtaining a doctorate, becoming a professor, or a researcher, etc. In fact, every country has these three paths: politics, commerce, and academia, but in developed countries, there are not strong barriers between them, and at a certain stage, it is easy to cross over.

For example, Schwarzenegger is considered a star abroad, right? He can become the governor of California and enter politics. Trump was originally a businessman, a real estate tycoon, and now he is the President of the United States.

However, in China, it is very difficult to achieve such interchange; the threshold is extremely high. Therefore, in the vast majority of cases, when we Chinese graduate and choose jobs, we can basically only choose one of these three paths and stick to it; it is very difficult to switch paths halfway.

Different paths require grasping different cores. Politics requires grasping power, which requires strong wisdom and skills; it is difficult for ordinary people to manage. Academia requires grasping new knowledge, which requires strong learning and critical thinking abilities, capabilities that are also not common among ordinary people. Commerce primarily requires grasping economic benefits, which varies from person to person; in fact, most people still choose the path of commerce.

Please look at the fourth exquisite photo I prepared for you. We can categorize all the organizational types we can choose from the perspective of the system into eight types. From left to right, the left side is the largest and most stable, while the right side is the smallest and most flexible.

On the left are government agencies, followed by public institutions, state-owned enterprises, foreign enterprises, large private enterprises, small and medium-sized private enterprises, startups, and finally freelancers.

I think anyone who wants to enter a company after graduation can only choose from these eight types. These eight types are very different from four dimensions.

• The first dimension is the entry qualifications. On the left, government agencies have the highest entry threshold; they will examine your education, background, political status, and even your family background, etc., so the entry threshold is quite high. Freelancing has the lowest entry threshold; if you set up a stall at your school gate or open a milk tea shop, you are a freelancer, and there is almost no entry threshold.

• The second dimension is organizational characteristics. Government agencies are the most stable work institutions; changes in leadership are still rare. The further right you go, the smaller the organization becomes, and it becomes relatively more flexible; smaller boats are easier to turn around.

• The third dimension is the nature of the work. Work in government agencies is usually more conservative and emphasizes stability. Because it involves too many interests from various aspects and many people's interests, it often cannot do anything too outrageous and is usually quite conservative. However, freelancers, startups, or small and medium-sized private enterprises tend to be more daring to challenge and continuously break through because they need to meet market demands.

• The fourth dimension is the core of the work. Different organizations have very different cores of work. Especially in government agencies, public institutions, and state-owned enterprises, they are resource-oriented. Where are the resources in government agencies? As Secretary Gao Yuliang said in "In the Name of the People," in Chinese politics, the top leader usually holds all the resources. In government agencies, if you want to advance and obtain resources, you must manage your relationship with your superiors well, so in state-owned enterprises, the most important thing is to look up, not to look at the users. However, in freelancing, startups, or small and medium-sized private enterprises, everything is oriented towards users, focusing on results. Being able to sell, having more traffic, and better reputation are the core of the work.

From these four different dimensions, we can see that different organizations have some obvious different characteristics.

Next, let’s look at the fifth image. You can see the matrix of entry requirements for different organizations. Through this example, you can observe what kind of path you are suitable for.

Our entry requirements matrix mainly has four parts: one is practical experience, another is comprehensive quality, then educational background, and finally professional matching degree. These four elements can be classified from the dimensions of controllable and uncontrollable, low accumulation cost and high accumulation cost.

Overall, if you want to go to government agencies, public institutions, or state-owned enterprises, they usually have the highest requirements for educational background, which is a hard threshold; they usually do not require too much practical experience. You can see that after entering a state-owned enterprise, the first two or three years are spent doing very basic tasks, organizing documents, writing reports, and so on. Therefore, it does not require you to have relevant work experience; instead, you need to have a clean background, a high educational background, or have passed the civil service exam, etc.

But what do private enterprises care about the most? They care the most about practical experience: have you done this before? Private enterprises emphasize efficiency. If a person has never done this, I have to spend a lot of time slowly teaching him. Private enterprises will not have the impulse or willingness to teach you from scratch, so they always emphasize that candidates with relevant work experience are preferred when recruiting.

What do foreign enterprises care about the most? They care about comprehensive quality: some high-end foreign enterprises not only require you to have a shiny educational background, studying abroad, etc., but also require you to have relevant work experience, and even your major must match, and they may even have requirements for your image and temperament.

After understanding the different organizational types and the entry requirements matrix, the most important thing we can do is to judge what kind of current situation you belong to and in which aspects you have advantages. For example, if your educational background is good and your comprehensive quality is also decent, then you can consider going to a foreign enterprise. If your educational background is not particularly good, then it may be difficult for you to enter government agencies or foreign enterprises; you have no competitive advantage in this regard. If you are a person with rich practical experience, such as having done many internships during university, then you may have an advantage in working for private enterprises. The earlier we understand the entry requirements of different organizations, the earlier we can see our current situation and prepare in advance.

If you are still a university student and plan to take the path that most people take, which is to go into business, then please look at the sixth image. I strongly recommend that during your university years, you participate in internships in this way: for example, work in a large company in an auxiliary position, do some assistant roles, or similar to HR intern positions. It is said that Siemens' HR intern position is relatively easy to get into (and Siemens is also a Fortune 500 company). After working in an auxiliary position in a large company, for your second internship, you can consider going to a large company's business position, such as sales, marketing, operations, product intern, etc. Such positions are also particularly beneficial for personal development.

Let’s first talk about the safety type: the safety type is entering state-owned enterprises, public institutions, central enterprises, etc. What are the benefits of this choice? This choice will be a clear high start and low walk. If you enter a state-owned enterprise through various exams and some connections right after graduation, you will definitely be envied by your classmates. Your job and household registration can be resolved, and you may even get a house in the future. You feel like you have reached the peak of life right after leaving campus. But don’t rush; this is a typical high start and low walk situation! Because entering a state-owned enterprise is quite good at first, but after 3-5 years, you will find that your growth and promotion are very difficult, and your growth is slow, and you won’t learn many practical skills.

Moreover, what’s even scarier is that the skills you learn in the system are not very valuable in real socialist values. Because many people in government agencies do things similar to administrative assistants in large private enterprises, such as being secretaries for leaders, organizing materials, and writing reports. Your opportunity cost is very high; you may work in a government agency for 5 to 10 years and still be a department head. However, during those 5 to 10 years, perhaps your classmates who were not as good as you when you graduated went to a private enterprise and became directors, or started their own businesses and made a lot of money!

So if you choose the safety type and enter a state-owned enterprise right after graduation, you need to be aware that you may experience a high start and low walk; this is something you need to pay attention to.

Another type is the stable type: graduating and going to some large foreign enterprises or large private enterprises. For example, companies like Alibaba and Taobao are excellent large private enterprises, and there’s also Tencent. The reason for going to such companies is that they are relatively wealthy, and their organizational structure is relatively sound, so your growth there will be faster, and the salary will not be too low. At this point, your career risk is also relatively low; after all, having worked in such large companies, your salary will also be higher when you go to smaller companies.

Another choice is the risk type: going to a startup with only three to five hundred people or even fewer right after graduation, or simply becoming a freelancer. This may be a way to grow faster because in small companies, one person has to do the work of several people, leading to faster growth. Generally, such companies tend to earn more; any reliable startup is willing to pay, and may even pay a bit more than those large companies, but the risks are also higher because the company could collapse at any time.

Because I do not understand your personality preferences and ability levels, overall, I suggest that everyone adopt a middle-ground approach to gradually adjust as they grow. At first, go to large private enterprises or foreign enterprises to train well and develop your professional skills; then start adjusting to see if there are opportunities to enter government agencies or start your own business. I do not encourage everyone to enter government agencies right after graduation, nor do I encourage starting a business right after graduation.

Please look at the image; when you enter different companies, pay attention to their different characteristics. When going to large companies or large foreign enterprises, be sure to pay attention to the business departments. Many large companies, although impressive, often have some strategic departments that can be very poor.

For example, if you go to a company like Sina, you should definitely be in the department related to Weibo; if you go to the department related to Sina Games, then you may not be in a core department. Understand? This is very crucial when choosing departments in large companies.

If you go to a small company or a startup, my advice is to be very, very picky about your boss. The boss of a startup is extremely important; the boss determines the life and death of the company. Therefore, if you go into a startup, you must look at your boss with a very critical eye. See if he has worked in a large company, if he has started a business before, if he has succeeded in starting a business, and what his relationship with investors is like, and whether he can quickly raise funds.

I strongly do not recommend that university students start their own businesses right after graduation. Because the success rate is very low, and the first two years of work are your golden years for career growth! Rather than starting a business, it’s better to work in a large company for two years, save some money, and build a network before considering starting a business.

The third point I want to emphasize is that if you enter a government agency and take the civil service exam, you must pay attention to the fact that different government agencies have different functions. You need to focus on your function; working in the statistics bureau is completely different from working in the human resources department. This is where different organizations need to focus on different priorities.

Please look at the ninth photo; next, I will tell you how to understand a company.

There are many unreliable methods and many reliable methods. Unreliable methods include: Have I heard of this company? Are there any impressive gossip or is the name impressive? Also, salary: Is the treatment high? You must be very cautious. If a small company offers you an unrealistically high salary, it is likely a scam.

Here are the reliable pieces of information I have listed for you. Please look at the image I prepared for you: this image is very, very important. If you use this image well, you can avoid many troubles. Moreover, you can use these tools and methods to quickly understand this company during your interview and impress the interviewer. You need to understand the industry rankings, the company’s system and capital, and if the company is publicly listed, its annual reports, official website, official WeChat, APP, employee self-media, etc., all need to be monitored.

Where can you obtain these materials? I have also displayed them for you on the 11th image; you can check these websites and forums to learn more.

Finally, I want to tell you how to choose a company. Here are three strategies for making choices.

The first is to start from the pursuit of life.

From the pursuit of life, you need to try to ask yourself this question: What kind of life do you want to live in the first five years after graduation? Is it conventional? Comfortable? Or changing? Challenging? Note that why the first five years after graduation? Here I want to tell you that when we choose our first job, we must not think that we will do this one thing for the rest of our lives, staying in this company forever; this is a very immature thought. You only need to consider whether you want to strive or be comfortable, whether you want to take risks or be conventional in the first five years, and then choose the organization that suits you.

The second is to start from the pursuit of career. What kind of problems do you want to solve for what kind of people? What is your dream? What do you want to change in this world? Start from your career.

The third, which I think is the most pragmatic and reliable, is to start from the opportunities at hand. Understand what your best choice is at this moment? Which company seems to rank higher in the industry, which company offers you more money, and you can consider going to that company.

The Schein's three-dimensional cone model of employee career development is based on the work of E.H. Schein, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a renowned career management scholar. Employee career development within an organization is represented by three pathways: vertical, inward, and horizontal. The "vertical" development pathway refers to the promotion or elevation of positions, specifically manifested as "position change development," where employees continuously rise from lower to higher positions based on the needs of organizational development and the career ladder established by the organization.

Understanding oneself is not an easy task; there are six elements we need to consider: personality, ability, resources, interests, values, and the influence of significant others.

In this lesson, we will focus on exploring ourselves from three dimensions, which I call the career three-leaf clover. They are interest, ability, and value.

As an experienced career planner, when I conduct one-on-one consultations with seekers facing career confusion, I usually do one thing: I ask questions from the perspectives of interest, ability, and value. I will ask, "How do you feel about the interest in the work you are doing? If you were to rate your satisfaction from one to ten based on interest, what would you rate it?"

After discussing interest, I will say, "Do you think you can handle your current job? If you can handle it completely, that’s a ten; if you can’t handle it at all, that’s a one. On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your ability?"

Then we have the third question: "Do you think you can gain what you want from this job? If this job can fully meet your various needs, that’s a ten; if it cannot meet your needs, that’s a one. On a scale of one to ten, what would you rate it?"

What I want to tell you is that any job's interest, ability, and value will directly affect our satisfaction with that job.

When we are interested in a job, we will naturally enjoy doing it; if we are not interested in that job, we will feel a strong sense of boredom and dislike. This feeling is like a student who is tired of preparing for the college entrance examination.

Holland's theory was proposed in 1959, about half a century ago, after World War II, when the industrial society began to emerge. It was proposed by American career planning master Holland, who developed the theory of person-job fit. He classified workers into six basic types, and corresponding professions were also divided into six types. If you are this type of person, you will naturally fit this type of work.

Holland's theory of career choice, also known as Holland's vocational personality theory, is one of the classic theories in the field of vocational psychology. Holland believes that a person's career interests and personal traits can be divided into six basic types, and each type matches certain work environments, job contents, and job natures. Successful careers often depend on the degree of fit between individuals and their work environments.

Holland's six career types are:

1. Realistic (R): Prefers concrete, practical work and hands-on tasks. Usually enjoys mechanical, tool, or outdoor activities and excels at solving practical problems. Suitable professions include engineers, technicians, construction workers, etc.

2. Investigative (I): Enjoys thinking, analyzing, and researching, focusing on problem-solving and acquiring knowledge. Suitable professions include scientists, researchers, doctors, programmers, etc.

3. Artistic (A): Enjoys creative, expressive, and art-related activities. Pursues a free and independent work environment. Suitable professions include designers, artists, writers, musicians, etc.

4. Social (S): Enjoys helping others and interacting with people, caring about others' needs. Suitable professions include teachers, psychologists, nurses, social workers, etc.

5. Enterprising (E): Enjoys leading and influencing others, focusing on business goals and goal-oriented work. Suitable professions include managers, salespeople, entrepreneurs, lawyers, etc.

6. Conventional (C): Prefers orderly work environments and excels at executing rules and organizing tasks. Suitable professions include accountants, data analysts, administrative assistants, etc.

Holland proposed the concept of person-job fit, which states that there is a matching relationship between an individual's career interest type and specific work environment types. According to his theory, career choice is not only a reflection of personal interests and abilities but also should consider the characteristics of the work environment. By understanding one's career interest type, individuals can choose career paths that match them, increasing job satisfaction and work efficiency.

Additionally, Holland's theory emphasizes the "similarity principle," which states that the higher the fit between individuals and work environments, the better individuals typically perform and feel satisfied in their careers. The career matching model can help individuals choose the most suitable career direction and help organizations find employees that best meet their needs.

Holland's Career Types and Work Environment Matching#

• Realistic (R): Matches with Realistic work environments (e.g., technology, machinery, agriculture, etc.).
• Investigative (I): Matches with Investigative work environments (e.g., scientific research, technology development, etc.).
• Artistic (A): Matches with Artistic work environments (e.g., creative design, artistic expression, etc.).
• Social (S): Matches with Social work environments (e.g., education, healthcare, social services, etc.).
• Enterprising (E): Matches with Enterprising work environments (e.g., business, sales, management, etc.).
• Conventional (C): Matches with Conventional work environments (e.g., administration, accounting, data management, etc.).

By understanding these six types and their matches, individuals can gain a clearer understanding of themselves and choose more suitable careers. At the same time, for companies, understanding the performance of different types of employees in various work environments can help improve team efficiency and employee satisfaction.

To accurately position your career, you may need to have a sufficient understanding of yourself as well as a deeper understanding of professions and work environments. According to Holland's theory, both individuals and professions can be divided into six types: Realistic (R), Investigative (I), Artistic (A), Social (S), Enterprising (E), and Conventional (C). When the personal type matches the professional type, individuals will feel a sense of achievement in their work and be eager to improve further.

I have prepared the ability triangle model for you, which can be divided into four parts: knowledge, experience, skills, and talents.

You see this ability triangle; knowledge and experience are at the top. Without knowledge and experience, you will not develop skills; without skills, you will not develop talents.

We write these five contents on our resumes: one is work experience, how well you performed in previous jobs. This is a very important part, or if you have no work experience, how was your internship experience? Secondly, project experience; next is social experience. What have you done in society? Internships, volunteer teaching, etc., or other business activities. Then there’s campus experience, which includes entrepreneurial competitions, school competitions, scholarships, etc. Learning experience includes academic performance, GPA, etc., and scholarships are also included in learning. These five aspects are worth writing well in your resume, but their value in your eyes or in the eyes of HR is different. In HR's view, work experience is the most valuable. The least valuable, or relatively low value, is academic performance. However, for the vast majority of people, whether they are university students or newly graduated job seekers, what do you have the most of? It’s academic experience. What do you have the least of? It’s work experience.

From this image, you can also see that for the vast majority of university students, what you should accumulate the most may not be your academic performance or campus experience, but your social experience or even your internship work experience. I hope to convey this through this image.

In simple terms, there are three major sections: one is career-related, one is project-related, and one is student-related. Let’s start with some student-related matters that you are more familiar with, including student unions and clubs. If you organized some club activities during university, such as hosting an event for two hundred people that received school coverage, these are all achievements worth writing about. If you have done some volunteer work, such as teaching in remote mountainous areas, or if you participated in hosting or volunteering at school or city-level meetings, these are all volunteer experiences worth writing about, including any overseas experiences you may have, such as exchanges, study tours, or volunteering abroad, etc.

Next is your project experience during university. For example, competitions; universities hold various entrepreneurial competitions every year, many of which are entrepreneurial competitions, right? Or some technology competitions or writing competitions. As long as you participated and achieved good results, you can write them down here. Also, if you collaborated with your mentor on some research projects or papers, or published any articles, these are all worth writing down.

In simple terms, there are three major sections: one is career-related, one is project-related, and one is student-related. Let’s start with some student-related matters that you are more familiar with, including student unions and clubs. If you organized some club activities during university, such as hosting an event for two hundred people that received school coverage, these are all achievements worth writing about. If you have done some volunteer work, such as teaching in remote mountainous areas, or if you participated in hosting or volunteering at school or city-level meetings, these are all volunteer experiences worth writing about, including any overseas experiences you may have, such as exchanges, study tours, or volunteering abroad, etc.

Next is your project experience during university. For example, competitions; universities hold various entrepreneurial competitions every year, many of which are entrepreneurial competitions, right? Or some technology competitions or writing competitions. As long as you participated and achieved good results, you can write them down here. Also, if you collaborated with your mentor on some research projects or papers, or published any articles, these are all worth writing down.

Now, here is a revised version I helped her with; everyone can take a look. "Responsible for operating the 'Shaoyi' social media, editing articles, and publishing original content to WeChat public accounts, Toutiao, Jinshang, and other platforms, with a total reading volume of 580,000. Obtained original qualification from Toutiao in half a month, possessing multi-platform operation experience." When I say this, you might think, "Wow! Her ability is quite good; she is capable." Why do you have this feeling? It’s because she follows at least five of the six elements of achievement events.

First, let’s break it down; what is the first element? "Action." What is the action? It’s "responsible for operation," right? The action is what you are responsible for or what you did; you participated in doing something, right? "Behavior" refers to what specific things you did during this process. I helped her write, "Editing articles, publishing original content to WeChat public accounts, Toutiao, Jinshang, and other platforms." This is the specific behavior, right? The third element is "Tools." Here, I didn’t help her write about tools, but tools can also be added, such as "I edited articles using tools like Xiumi Editor and Chuangketie to publish content to..." This can also be included.

Okay, the fourth element is "Data." "Reading volume of 580,000" is a very good piece of data. Through this reading volume, I can roughly guess that her articles must have been published well, that her titles must be good, and that her formatting must also be good, which gives me a very good impression of her. Data is very important. The fifth element is "Impact." Impact refers to what recognition you received after completing this task. "Obtained original qualification from Toutiao in half a month" is also a small achievement, right? Finally, what is the gain? After completing these tasks, what did you gain? "Possessing multi-platform operation experience." I believe that if I were a company recruiting an operations intern and saw such a resume, I would definitely be impressed, right? It is certainly much better than what she wrote earlier. This is the six elements of achievement events; it can quickly turn your achievements into a form that HR can understand and is willing to read, making it more professional and career-oriented.

To deepen your understanding, I will give you another example; please look at the image I prepared for you, which illustrates the six elements of achievement. Let’s take an example of one of my students who worked as a marketing specialist at an English training institution in Beijing, helping them with student recruitment. He mentioned a lot, saying that he formed a small team to complete the recruitment task, attracting 100 people through early-stage flyers and private messaging, and achieving 40 people from two schools, ultimately increasing by more than 10 people. He gained knowledge from the team, learned to manage himself, and how to manage others. These things are already better than what the previous student who helped with operations wrote; he has data and achievements, right? However, it still does not fully reflect that this is your achievement event.

Now, let’s look at another student of mine; after my guidance, he wrote his resume like this. First, let’s look at the "Action." What did he write? "Founded the Zhongshan OPPO entrepreneurial team," "Led thirty people in product promotion, sales, and planning." What is this? This is the specific behavior. "Implemented more than 30 promotional activities, selling a total of 188 phones, with sales amounting to 520,000." Here, you can see that there are many numbers, which highlight the importance of data. What is the result? What is the impact? "Ranked among the top three in Dalian schools, receiving a public-funded opportunity to study at OPPO headquarters." Everyone can see that this segment of the resume is clearly written, with clear data, defined responsibilities, and significant results. You could say it is an excellent resume. My student got a job at Baidu before graduation through such a resume.

What are the three degrees? He wants to see your fit with the position during the interview, your satisfaction, and your loyalty.

What is fit? It refers to whether your abilities can handle this job, whether you can do well, and whether you will run away after a couple of days of work, or if you can’t handle it at all, which means I have to spend a lot of time and energy teaching you. This is fit.

The second is satisfaction: can you do this job well, or do you recognize this work? Can we reach a cooperation and understanding between us? Satisfaction and loyalty refer to how long you can stay here and whether you can continue to create value here. This is loyalty.

Fit is usually assessed through achievement events to demonstrate your abilities, right? Satisfaction is usually assessed through value, which means whether you are worth cultivating and worth cooperating with; at this time, your work attitude is the main focus.

Loyalty is assessed through your values, which involve your career personality and career pursuits. These three major points are what we need to demonstrate during the interview process when facing our desired job: we need to showcase our fit, satisfaction, and loyalty.

So how do we face the interview specifically?

We can divide interviews into three categories: one is structured interviews, which include first, second, and third rounds of interviews; the second is pressure interviews, where you face several interviewers at once. The third is what you may have heard of called unstructured group discussions. Unstructured group discussions are also a common type of interview, usually used by large companies, such as state-owned enterprises, central enterprises, or Fortune 500 companies. Here, I will focus on the first two types of interviews.

The first type of interview is the common structured interview.

A standard structured interview usually consists of four rounds. The first round is the preliminary interview stage, mainly to assess your professional qualities. The hiring unit or interviewer will mainly examine your mental outlook, demeanor, and basic communication skills, as well as your willingness for this job and how well you prepared for it, etc. This is usually the first round of the preliminary interview!

The second round of interviews will assess your professional knowledge, such as your professional abilities, your performance in university or your previous job, your learning qualities, and whether you have relevant insights and experiences. Your work attitude will also be a key focus during the second round of interviews. The second round of interviews is usually the most challenging one. If you pass the second round, you will enter the next round, which is about cultural integration. This mainly assesses your ability to integrate into the company culture and team style, whether you can recognize the corporate culture, and whether your working style aligns with the team’s style. This is what will be emphasized in the third round of interviews.

The last round is the final interview, which usually involves a final risk assessment, discussing your career plans, checking your fit with the company, and also understanding your family and partner’s expectations, which may influence your long-term stability in career development!

We know that most companies will have several rounds of interviews; some companies may simplify the process for efficiency, combining several rounds into one, or even having only one or two rounds of interviews, which is understandable.

Now let’s look at the pressure interview, which usually also appears in structured interviews in a one-to-many or many-to-one format. Who usually participates in group decision-making? HR, the head of the hiring department, or mid-to-high-level managers of the company.

When facing a pressure interview, what they assess is mainly satisfaction, loyalty, and fit. They will create a seemingly stricter environment to assess you, so at this time, you need to pay attention to several points:

The first point is to pay attention to your professional thinking and awareness. What is professional awareness? It is the mindset and ability to complete tasks. This includes preparing your resume and examples well, and being concise in your expression.

The second point is to understand the company’s business. In every internship and interview, you must understand the company’s business. Before the interview, you must understand the company’s business, search for similar experiences, or ask friends and family if they have similar experiences to share during the interview to express your understanding of the company.

The third point is that you must pay attention to the fact that during any interview, the interviewer is not primarily looking at whether your answers are appropriate; what they first look at is whether you can maintain a relaxed and confident state in the face of such a situation and pressure. This is very important!

These five dark moments are: the novice period, the skilled period, the team leader period, the business leader period, and finally the company leader period. In our career path, we must transition from a novice to a company leader. In this process, it is particularly like a martial arts master starting as an unknown novice, continuously challenging powerful figures in the martial arts world, gradually becoming the supreme master. This is a path of growth. You might say, "I don’t want to be a company leader; I think it’s too tiring. I also don’t want to be a team leader; it’s really too hard." You can think this way, but the result will be that your career benefits will definitely not be particularly high.

Next, we will focus on the characteristics of these five dark moments, interpreting them from five dimensions: the growth process, core contradictions, key behaviors, evaluations from superiors, and erroneous behaviors. If you can see clearly these five dark moments, your career development path will become very clear, and you will know what to do at each stage.

Let’s first talk about the novice period. The most important thing during the novice period is survival. If you have just joined a company and haven’t been there long, the most important thing you should do is to establish your footing in the company. At this time, you should be proactive and diligent. You should aim to receive evaluations from your leaders such as "This person is very down-to-earth, works very hard, and is willing to do tasks." At this time, you will usually gain more opportunities, and your leaders will be willing to mentor you, allowing you to build better relationships with colleagues, which is very important.

The erroneous behavior is always feeling that this job is not suitable for me, that it is meaningless, too simple, or too trivial, always thinking of escaping, wanting to quit, and doing as little as possible because it seems meaningless. If you exhibit this kind of behavior, you will remain in the novice period for a long time, and it will be difficult for you to achieve greater development because others will see you as unreliable.

Once we pass the novice period and perform well during the internship, gaining recognition from our leaders, we transition from novice to skilled. At this time, the core thing you need to do is to strengthen your abilities. In the novice stage, you rely on hard work; you don’t have much ability because you don’t understand much. Just working harder than others is enough, but once you reach the skilled stage, you must have your own abilities, methods, principles, and a problem-solving attitude, etc. This is all a demonstration of ability.

At this time, you should be able to perform better than the veteran employees around you; this is the key. Usually, at this time, leaders will think you are quite excellent, performing better than your colleagues. At this point, you become a good skilled worker. The most feared situation is that when you first join, you are enthusiastic and eager to do many things, but once you get the hang of it, you start to feel that everything is similar and that doing just enough is fine. If you remain at the skilled level, one or two years later, you will be very painful because you will find that those who joined with you may have already been promoted and received raises while you are still at the same level, leading to dissatisfaction and thoughts that this job is not suitable for you. In fact, it’s not that the job is unsuitable for you; it’s that your abilities are insufficient.

If you can develop your abilities during the skilled period and have your own methods of working, always exceeding expectations, then you will begin to move towards the third stage of growth, becoming a backbone of the team. If you want to become a backbone, you need more opportunities to start taking on challenging business tasks. What is seeking business challenges? If you are in the skilled stage, leaders will like to assign you many tasks, but you will feel very exhausted. You do many things well, but these tasks often do not hold much value!

If you want to become a backbone, you should start delegating these less valuable tasks to others; you should take on the newest and most challenging business tasks to tackle. At this time, your core task is to optimize your work efficiency.

You must simplify complex tasks, delegate simple tasks to your subordinates or interns, or new hires, to optimize your efficiency. At this time, leaders will recognize you; they will feel you are particularly excellent, that they can trust you to handle tasks, and that you can even manage independently. However, you must be cautious.

If you have already become a business backbone, and leaders always trust you and are willing to let you handle tasks, you must be alert not to become complacent; you must continue to work diligently. If you have become a business backbone, the next step is to become a business leader; you must be able to independently lead a team to conduct business, which is very important. Simply being a specialist is not enough; you must also be able to manage and lead people and ensure the company meets its KPIs. Superiors will think you are very excellent; what if you don’t?

At this time, the most erroneous behavior is to think that you are not good at dealing with people, that you are not suitable for leadership. In fact, it’s not that you are unsuitable; it’s that we often like to view things we cannot do as things we dislike. This is actually wrong; it’s because you are not adequately prepared and your abilities are insufficient. Therefore, do not just be a specialist; if you want your career to develop significantly, learn to manage and lead people.

The final part is becoming the company leader. The core contradiction for a company leader is no longer doing the work; you should be setting strategic directions. Your key behavior is to integrate resources internally and externally. You must make your investors or shareholders feel that you are someone who can get things done. The most erroneous behavior at this time is to get involved in actual business operations.

If we can see clearly that we must experience these five dark moments in the workplace, we will understand that the career path will become increasingly difficult. Although it becomes increasingly difficult, you must know that your rewards will also increase. When you are a novice, you are basically earning the lowest salary in the company. When you are skilled, you will generally have an opportunity for promotion and salary increase. If you want to achieve true financial freedom, you must be a leader in a business sector, able to manage independently. If you want to achieve wealth freedom, you must be a company leader; only then will you see significant growth in your earnings.

If we can see clearly these five dark moments, we will know where we are on the timeline, what stage we are in, and what tasks we need to accomplish at each stage while preparing for the next stage. We cannot rely on the efforts of the first two years of work to rest for a lifetime; in this era, it is almost impossible.

A core key is the intersection of interests; you and your leader are a small intersection of interests. You need to learn to see them clearly and think and act within this intersection of interests to seek a win-win situation. Next is how to handle your relationship with your leader; remember my four tips: one is to learn to deliver, the second is high return rates, the third is to obey and be disciplined, and the fourth is to become a mentor and apprentice.

How to handle relationships with colleagues? Three principles: limited exposure principle, bestowing small favors principle, and seeking collaboration principle. Finally, I will also tell you about refusal. What is the mindset of refusal? Remember, I am not someone who must comply with every request.

The mantra is to let me think about it, and I will give you three methods. I believe that as long as you skillfully apply these three methods in your work, you can become an efficient and harmonious workplace person.