This article caught my attention early this morning. Daily Mail wrote an opinion piece titled "A major decision: From engineering to nursing, which bachelor's degrees bring in the big bucks at every stage of your career - revealed". A brief observation of the charts in this article shows this - generally, careers that value add to businesses "perform better" than those who don't.

After 13 years in the recruitment field of which 8 years running my own agency in Kuala Lumpur, I got to witness the rapid changing landscape of how businesses operate and the type of talents they acquire. Strictly from my observation and engagement with both sides of the divide (clients and candidates), businesses tend to reward those who can positively impact the bottomline. As we barrel down the Fourth Industrial Revolution, demand for engineering skills, aside from the money  and marketing disciplines, will be more pronounced as the line between life and tech blurs. These are the jobs that help make sense of the changes, connect the dots and execute innovation.

Certainly, those who embark their careers within academia, nursing or even music (the really creative field!) have a natural calling to do what they do. It is a passion. But what about us who don't have "the" passion? Who are stuck in the rut?

Here's the thing.

It is never too late to pivot our career from being in the creative and backroom support domain to that of a "business contributor". It just calls for a change in our perspective. We require to start thinking like an entrepreneur and embrace innovation. We need to learn how to read the trends and make sense of what is heading our way. We need to constantly change.

There are poor engineers. And there are rich musicians. It is just that fortune favours the brave.

As a young professional, the very thought of going for a performance review still makes me a tad nervous – not as bad as the first few sessions early in my career life but that fleeting moments of nervousness is still there.

Our Asian culture which dictates that we must always respect our elders, seniors, or bosses, and to humbly accept their feedback and criticism for they are wiser, rich in experience, and always right; I couldn’t help but feel a small sense of doom even before I step into the meeting.
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Over the years and having gone through a number of performance reviews, I realised that I do look forward to these sessions because at the end of it all, I have walked away with insightful gems.