More than at any other time career advancement goes hand-in-hand with professional and personal development. No longer are there ‘jobs for life’ – staying employable requires hard work and focus, fostering your own professional development helps you cultivate additional skills to help master new job responsibilities.
Ask yourself what kind of new opportunities might exist and what challenges will you face? The answer is probably many. To be effective in the workplace and to reach your potential, you must employ new strategies.
Effective career management strategies
Continuous learning is critical. Learning in the work place is increasingly key to career advancement because shifts in structure and shapes of jobs will require you to cultivate new skills throughout your career, for example, mastering new technologies and taking exams.
More than ever you will need to take responsibility for your own career path, including long-term career training and re-training. Manage your career as if you are self-employed.
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While employers no longer offer job security, they do provide opportunities and resources to develop new skills in order to keep yourself employable.
Take advantage of these resources. Your best job security is your ability to be employable in your chosen field by continually updating your skills and staying abreast of new opportunities.
Excel in your present job and be proactive. Ask for feedback about your current skills set and how it fits with the future direction of the company. Discuss with your boss what next steps might be good for you. Identify tasks and projects to get involved in to help promote you and your career.
Develop effective working relationships and network with other people who do work related to yours – attend events, professional association meeting, conferences and training both to learn and to meet people.
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Find mentors. Never underestimate the power of support of a senior person who knows you well.
Maintain a ‘what’s next’ mentality. Individuals who do the best in their current jobs are those who think ahead about how things will be changing. Keep your CV and record of achievement up-to-date and ready to go, so that you are able to let others know of your qualifications and achievements should or when the opportunity arise.
Regularly re-examine your goals. A solid sense of yourself is critical in order to take responsibility for managing your own career.
Be aware of your strengths and weaknesses, values, goals and motivators, interests, skills and abilities and how these aspects of oneself change and develop with time and experience.
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Be aware of the opportunities around you. Knowledge and understanding of the range of available opportunities – including informal initiatives – the demands which they make, and the rewards they offer.
Make informed, reasoned decisions about what career to pursue or company to join and how to achieve a healthy balance between work and other activities. Setting realistic goals, weighing up priorities and make active choices, continuously review and re-assess personal goals and decisions.
Develop skills needed to cope with the significant change in our lives, from school to uni, training and work. Learn to tolerate uncertainties and find ways of actively managing a sometimes bewildering array of choices. Deal with setbacks and disappointments, negotiate change.
It is in doing work that you enjoy, which offers the challenge and meaning that will motivate you to excel in your chosen field.
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