What are you doing to boost your career? What is your vision for yourself? What are your aspirational goals? How will you achieve them?
The workplace is in constant, whirlwind change. New doors are opening, while others you might have relied on are slamming shut. Your next opportunity might be with your current organization, or with another. Charting your career strategy can be complex.
How are you positioning yourself for the future? When opportunity strikes, will you be the most desirable candidate? Act now and be ready to move ahead.
Key Moves to Boost Your Career
- Keep up with change. Change can make or break your career quickly. What is here today might disappear tomorrow. Watch trends and think ahead. How will new technologies affect your field and job? What demographic and social trends could help or threaten your current role? What steps can you take now to take advantage of new opportunities?
- Keep learning. Yesterday’s knowledge is obsolete. Invest the time to expand your personal and professional capabilities. Don’t put this off for “someday;” someday will be too late. New challenges require new solutions. Be ready.
- Make and monitor your achievements. Small accomplishments can hinder your career. Set challenging goals and reach them. Keep a written record of the starting point, the obstacles you faced, your solution, and the positive results. Whenever you can, put numbers to your achievements. In the fast pace of work, it’s easy to forget your successes. A written record can be a great reminder for performance reviews and upcoming job interviews.
- Get connected. Who do you know, and who knows you? Your professional colleagues can alert you to trends in their areas of expertise, and alert you to new opportunities. Be a giver, not a taker. Offer assistance to others when you can. Connect individuals in your network to others when there is a win-win relationship. Develop your reputation as an exemplary professional in your field.
- Continually develop communication skills. Regardless of your current expertise, there is always more to learn. Communication is a critical leadership skill. Mis-communication can cause rework, inefficiency and even more dire consequences. An abrupt or abusive affect, poor grammar, awkwardness in networking or presentation situations and more can throttle or end your career possibilities.
- Analyze leaders. What do you admire about your boss? What frustrates you? Whether your boss is superb, abysmal, or a blend, learn from them. Remember what motivated you and what made you ready to quit, and apply this to your own communication and leadership style. Engage good bosses and seek additional insights from them. But be sincere; groveling adoration is manipulative, transparent and unprofessional.
- Be flexible. Be open to new technologies, new systems and new everything. If something fails, be ready to try something different. Be a team player; business is a team sport.
Focus on the future. Take action now and position yourself for emerging opportunities. Be competitive in the marketplace, boost your career and reach for your aspirational goals.