New World View from Business & Career Week Experts

Over 500 participants and 20 experts met during the Business & Career Week to realize what those who develop their businesses and career would need in the new reality.  The week offered 15 free of charge online events co-conducted by ProWomen BY and UNDP in Belarus. 

Among the experts there were heads, partners and co-founders of organizations, marketing, communications and PR specialists, HR and career development experts.

Here are ten important recommendations regarding business and career development in the new world.

Business:

1. Define the principles you build your business on. It will add courage and resoluteness and help get rid of everything unnecessary.  Seeing the purpose is very important as this clarity enables sustainability and helps determine what and who you will say “yes” or “no” to. (Marta Skugareva, Monkey Food café co-founder, communications specialist).

2. See about financial sustainability.  Money of your business is not your money already. Money of an owner is the owner’s salary, if she/he is directly involved in this business, and dividends - that is what remained after all the pay-outs. The owner should not receive as much as she/he needs, but must earn money in accordance with the same motivation system, which is used for the personnel.  (Irina Yanukovich, PiK-audit director, auditor)

3. Search for the balance between online and off-line modes. We have interviewed over 30 businesswomen and noticed that many considered online mode as a means to make their businesses more sustainable and now plan to preserve and develop this area.  The second wave of pandemic is still likely to interfere with businesses and you must be prepared to quickly switch back and forth between online and off-line modes.  (Julia Malkova, ProWomen By and Botanika founder, marketing specialist, communications specialist and brand strategist)

4. Set not only economic goals for your business. When business is built on social and economic goals, it becomes more sustainable: more economically strong and more attractive for employees, clients, and investors. Analyse how your business influences the community around it and calculate the ecological footprint of your company.  Write down in steps what you could do to improve the situation. Start simple and be consistent. (Katya Shkor, PR specialist in Orange Bird marketing agency for sustainable development)

If you decide to sell your business, deal with it in a responsible manner.

1. Organize your documents, property, work arrangements, intellectual property, relations with partners and state bodies.

2. Calculate your budget. Make a decision on how much you want to receive for your business and how much you are ready to spend for transaction processing.  Remember that sale of business entails tax liabilities.

3. Make information public.  Prepare the basic documentation package, which will allow a buyer to get acquainted with your business and decide upon whether to buy it.

Minimize the risk and hire a consultant.  If you have sold your business correctly, you will later be pleased to watch it working and progressing.  (Katerina Kubrak, CleverConsult legal agency partner, expert of Association of Business Security and Compliance).

Career:

 1. Consider your learning strategy. It is no good to blindly follow the mainstream. Analyse what else is missing and write down what you want to see as a result of learning. Chalk out a spot, where you want to be in a year and write down in details what you must do to achieve it. The information field is huge today, and we have access to numerous learning resources, and the trick is not to jump from one resource to another, but to create your own plan and to move purposefully in the right direction. (Valentina Chekan, co-founder of IT Princess Academy and LuCh high school)

2. Create a profile in LinkedIn.  This will enable direct contacts with recruiters and employees of the companies you are interested in. Such personal contacts are always efficient. This will also help evaluate you competitiveness on the market. Remember that this resource requires active development: expand the network of your contacts, publish useful and interesting information, add skills, demonstrate your growth, take part in discussions. (Maria Kragelskaya, IT-Academy, head of employment and career development department)

3. Set the price of your work. To determine your wage expectations the market research is needed and you cannot rely on one and only source of information.  Study the difference in such concepts as bottom quartile, median, and upper quartile.  Your most important concept is median.  Remember that median is not an arithmetical average, but it is a sum in the middle of the wage range, which divides it into two equal parts.

Define your expectations within the range of maximum, optimum, and minimum. The minimum will be close to median, the optimum is the value of median plus 5-20%, the maximum is the value you will use in negotiations. Make sure to define walk-away point for yourself to mark the level, lower which the payment would not be fair and reflecting your level of expertise.  Remember that you must connect your salary expectations and value proposition and should not reason the raise with your financial obligations such as credits, housing rent, etc. (Anna Bondarenko, People Partner in IT-company, career development consultant)

4. Choose the strategy of negotiations. Think of negotiations as of a dialogue. It is not a battle or struggle; it is a discussion of your working conditions. Try to move the focus from yourself when discussing your salary.  First of all, make sure you know the full offer of an employer and only after that announce your salary expectations.

Get ready for negotiations and be prepared to fence and argue.  Prepare the arguments, which are really convincing, build on value proposition, which should be composed by formula: achievement, skill, result.

If you have doubts, don’t be afraid to ask for extra time to take a decision. (Anna Bondarenko, People Partner in IT-company, career development consultant)

5. Ask questions after your job interview is over. Make sure you ask about the history of the vacancy: why the vacancy was opened or what the reason of previous employee’s leaving was. Clarify the length of the probationary period and remuneration during this period. Ask once again to briefly specify your core duties, discuss working hours, working conditions, equipment, and benefits package. Agree upon the term for decision making. (Polina Drobushevich, Prodify PR-manager, engaged in learning area in recruitment).

 Pro-Women By - non-commercial organization, which supports girls enthusiastic about the idea of own businesses.  ProWomen By involves experts to provide girls with necessary practical tools for launch and development of businesses and helps set necessary business relations.  ProWomen By holds yearly over 40 workshops, lectures, master classes and training sessions to support and inspire the women.

Business&Career Week was supported by UNDP in the Republic of Belarus as part of a range of activities aimed to respond to COVID-10 challenges.