The company you work for can influence this, but ultimately its down to you and your personal motivation to get to where you want to go.
It is no coincidence that successful companies have clear career paths as they are focused on attracting good people and keeping them.
Similarly, within organisations that are struggling, employees often don’t know what their next step is.
If you are in stagnant organisation, a lack of any obvious career path can be a serious problem, particularly if you are just beginning your career.
At this stage you need a good breadth and depth of experience. Without good career opportunities you may not achieve your long-term potential. Individuals who can boast specific skills and experience will get the top jobs. So you need to have the opportunity to accumulate the appropriate skill set.
Understanding where you are
It is important to understand where you are now so you can be realistic in identifying the opportunities available to you, and make best use of all resources. Take stock of your knowledge, skills and experience and think through the type of job you ultimately want. Let’s face it – we don’t all want to be managing directors or chief executive officers. Identify the sort of work you want to do, review job adverts to see what roles are out there, and look at the job others do. Knowing what you want to do is half the battle.
Having identified your career option (even if the option is to stay in the same career) it is important to do some basic research. What sort of experience do you need? What qualifications? What are the rewards? Speak to people who are doing the role, seek their opinion for your suitability, they should be able to advise on employers of choice. Once you know what you want, you have to work out how to get it. If you need new skills then you need to begin to acquire them. If you need experience then you need to work out how to get it. If you need qualifications, contact the appropriate bodies.
Making the move
If you want to make a major change then it may not be practical to do this in one go, particularly if you want to change to a radically new career in a new company or industry. Similarly, if you want to move to a more senior position, then you may have to work through a series of intermediate roles. You may come to the conclusion that you need to change organisation. If this is the case, make sure you approach this as a major project in its own right – the effort you put in will determine the quality of the role you will eventually find.
Remember – if you are competing for a new job, your best selling point is to be more valuable to the company than anyone else.
- Keep up-to-date with the latest developments.
- Make the most of any training programmes on offer.
- Have more skills specific to the position.
- Enrol in external courses to increase your skills.
- Develop your interpersonal skills – be able to maintain harmonious relationships in the workplace and manage staff in a constructive and positive way.
- Be enthusiastic and dedicated – be willing to put in the hours, come up with ideas and suggestions and be an active team player.
- Have useful qualifications combined with real world experience – something that will only come with time.
Jo Allam is director of Ecruit Ltd
