CareerNews
			How Charles Dunstone found success How Anita Roddick found success An alternative to what? The secret of my success? Apprenticeships Work your way up Start your own business Take time off Aim for the top

Success: The achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted

Progress from School to College, University into a penthouse and Porsche - As we all know, career succession is never that simple.

Something else that we all know is that you will only reach the top of the career ladder through hard work, dedication and determination.

The route to success can be hugely varied, the conventional path from education into your chosen life-long career is not the only way to achieve your career goals.

There are numerous examples of corporate highfliers who have found success in their respective industries through alternative career paths:

Charles Dunstone founder of The Carphone Warehouse
Intended to do a business degree at Liverpool University but enjoyed his job as a computer salesman too much and his plans to go to university were abandoned. After he transferred to selling mobile phones Charles realised that there was a niche in the market for selling discounted phones to small businesses and the general public. In 1989, aged 25, Charles Dunstone set up The Carphone Warehouse with £6,000 in the bank. It was a success from the start, turning over £1.5 million in its first full year of operation.

Anita Roddick founder of the Body Shop
Studied English, History, and Aesthetics at college before winning a scholarship to study the children of Kibbutzim in Israel in 1962. On the completion of the course she held numerous jobs including clipping newspapers for the International Herald Tribune in Paris, teaching for a short time in England, and working for the United Nations in Geneva. After working in Geneva, she took a self-guided tour and traveled though Tahiti, New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Reunion, Madagascar, Mauritius, Australia, and Johannesburg. Anita married Gordon Roddick in 1971, the couple owned and ran a restaurant and an eight room hotel in Littlehampton. Then in 1976, using the hotel for collateral, 33-year-old Anita decided to open a natural, environmentally conscious cosmetic store - The first Body Shop

An Alternative to what?
To examine alternative routes to success, we should identify the perceived 'conventional route'.

It is commonly believed that success comes to those who achieve good grades at school and then progress to get a top level degree from a red brick university, enter business at lower management level and advance from there.

Indeed higher education is one entry point into the workplace, but it does not bring with it a guaranteed stamp of success.

Many of the skills needed in the workplace cannot be learnt from a textbook. If you do take the academic route, perhaps you should consider work experience and a sandwich style degree course, both of which introduce undergraduates to the realities of the workplace early and can yield useful contacts.

There are some professions for which you do definitely require a specific degree qualification. For example you need to attend medical school to be a surgeon, that cannot be compromised.

Many people however cannot afford to go to University and may not have the desire to do so, having had enough of the confined nature of the classroom by the age of 16/18.

As the example of Anita Roddick shows, even if you have not found your niche after years in employment it is never too late to change tack and strive for success in a different area, perhaps attending further education as a mature student.

The Secret of my Success
Unless you are going to inherit the family title, heirlooms and estate, you can increase your chances of achieving success by possessing the following attributes:

• People skills
• Communication
• Enthusiasm
• Intelligence
• Foresight
• Management skills

These will equip, and prepare you well within the work place. Success is a competitive game, everyone wants it, and if you are going to reach the top you have to stand out ahead of your peers.

Find a niche - make best use of your assets
You will find success if you have a skill which you can develop and exploit or an idea you can market. For example a valuable skill could be fluency in a foreign language, advanced IT skills or a natural ability with children.

The Alternatives to the Academic Route

Apprenticeships
Depending on what industry you have your sights set on, it may be possible to do an apprenticeship. These used to be more common but are still available within some professions including engineering.

Serving an apprenticeship has the following benefits:

• Acquire knowledge needed in that business
• Learn the companies methods
• Work with personnel in that industry
• Train on the company's equipment

Open to young people aged usually from 16 to 25 an apprenticeship entails instruction alternating between the theoretical and the practical. The training prepares the apprentice for a certified vocational or technological qualification at levels from GCSE to graduate engineering.

Courses alternate periods spent working for a company with periods in the training school.
The employer agrees to pay the apprentice a salary and to provide him with vocational training, in return the apprentice undertakes to work and to follow the training courses given.

Work your way up
Start as dog's body, advance to senior dog's body and after a couple of years you will have your own desk…
Advancing your way through the company is an effective way to succeed. You have to select an industry which offers plenty of scope from promotion, work hard, and make yourself known to the people in charge.

Familiarise yourself with other aspects outside of your own job description, and perhaps do some homework and commit yourself after-hours to other useful skills.

After a couple of years you will have enough experience to move into a more senior position in another firm. Alternatively stay where you are if they recognise your talent - you will have been committed to the company long enough to make them aware that you are a talent in the organisation that needs developing. You have to show initiative and hopefully it will be rewarded.

The cost of filling a position by promoting someone already within the firm is significantly cheaper than advertising externally, this can work in your favour.

Start your own business
If you have a good idea for a marketable product or service and can get financial backing then start your own business. This can be an exciting, and potentially very financially rewarding.

Being your own boss requires discipline and energy, you will not get anywhere by sleeping in each morning. If you have a promising idea, your first port of call should be the bank manager.

Take time off
Once a wise person said: "All good things come to those who wait". Whether this person was standing for a bus at the time is not known, but generally this sentiment does not hold true in the business world. You have to actively pursue your goals, however having said that the route to the top may not be a direct one.

Taking time off to see the world is an invaluable experience if you can afford to do it, you can broaden your horizons, get ideas, see how other cultures do things and gain confidence. This is just how Anita Roddick found her inspiration.

We often feel pressurised into finding work, any work, as quickly as possible to pay the bills. However once you have that job, do not feel that you have to stay at it, or that company, or that sector.

Aim for the top
Success will be achieved numerous times during your career. Each individual goal you see through to completion is a success. Along the way any number of things can happen, you may go travelling, start a family, or change jobs many times over.

Success comes in many forms, if you are happy with your job, enjoy the company of your colleagues and are comfortable with your income - you are a success.