- Clarify your career goals.
What are your aspirations at the present job or career? Perform a personal career “check-up” – is this the job or career you want to be in? Are you using your skills effectively and to your satisfaction? Does the present job / career inspire you? What can you do to enhance your career? Do you aspire for more success and contentment at work? Would you work better in a different work environment? Ask yourself such questions and answer honestly to correctly analyze your present career health. Take charge of your career – it is you and only you who can make the required changes to help yourself to an accelerated success and growth. - Analyze your current skill set.
What other skills can take you ahead of the crowd. Make a list and see how you can acquire these skills by either taking courses or learning on the job. Learning new skills should be on your list all the year through. Most of the companies reimburse you for your work related courses and certifications, utilize them. As values are to a personality so are skill set to your career growth and health. Invest and grow them as much as you can whenever you can to ensure constant career advancement. - Document your successes.
Whatever project you work on today, keep on writing and updating about your accomplishments in a separate detailed “resume” or call it your portfolio. Thinking on how you increased your company’s revenue 3 to 5 years down the road might be difficult for you if you have not documented your accomplishments and testimonials from customers / colleagues anywhere now. - Be a team player; build a supportive relationship with co-workers.
Good interaction amongst your own group will help in generating good vibes and a good team to work with makes a great place to work in. Offer taking up project responsibilities for your colleagues / co-workers who wish to go on vacation. Being a team player and a good colleague has its value and who knows when you have to take a vacation or a break and then you might not need to even ask for a cover-up, the offer will come before you can ask. What goes around comes around. - When feeling frazzled with the workload – learn to prioritize.
At times the work load seems impossible to handle and the confusion ensues, learn to prioritize your work or work with your manager to help you identify the key issues to work on first. Delegating would help as well. Prioritize your work based on due date of an impending project, length or intensity of a task or the mere simplicity but do prioritize, it helps you get the tasks of your mind and desk one by one. It says a lot about your organization skills as well. - Be Assertive when it calls for. Make yourself visible.
Make your manager aware on the list of tasks accomplished by initiating regular meetings or weekly work reports. If the manager is too busy to traveling to have these regular meetings mark on your calendar to send via Email a weekly report either at the end of the week or the beginning of the week. By doing so you are making yourself visible and marketing yourself as a reliable and accountable worker. Market yourself; the corporate world is a lot about how well you market yourself. - Always keep abreast of news on companies within your business area.
Read and keep abreast on their market rankings in your area of interest. Read trade magazines and newspaper research on the hiring trends and market value of some new companies that you feel can be a good company to work for, for better growth and salary. Keeping pace with the changing marketplace is the key to sustainable survival in the job market. Job market and the way people work is changing fast learn to adapt well and you will be in control. - Prepare well ahead of your performance review.
Send a copy of your accomplishments and work record well ahead of time to your manager. Take notes during the review and discuss in details with your manager on a future road-map to further training / improvement or setting new goals. Schedule a follow-up meeting if you did not agree with the assessment in the given time-frame, substantiate your feedback with evidence of your performance as perceived and testified by customers or colleagues you have worked with.
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