Professional Career Development

Career Development

In the current economic climate it is essential that you are proactive about advancing your career. With companies and businesses seeking to economise and probably thinking of redundancies and layoffs they are unlikely to be thinking of promotions or employee development.

You need to think outside the box. Your priority should be to become a valuable employee to the company/business so that you are considered worth retaining.

Here are some strategies to get you thinking proactively about your career management:

Get to know your company’s mission, objectives, values and business strategies. Where do you fit in? Reference this to your job description; are you meeting all your responsibilities? If you are struggling with any aspect then check out what additional skill or help you need to fully undertake all your duties at this level.

Now checkout the next position which is the next logical position for your to move into. Get the job description and person specification for it and consider what further experience and skills you need in order to move to that next position.

Talk to your line-manager and obtain feedback on how you are doing and sound him/her out on your desire to contribute more to the company’s development by taking on higher responsibilities [ie the next position your are aspiring to].

Systematically work to acquire the required skills and experience. This could be by way of formal training sessions, reading up on the subject matter or by asking to spend a few weeks or some time shadowing the current position-holder. You will of course need to do this in a subtle and non-threatening way. You will find they are more likely to co-operate and let you shadow them if you say something like you wanted to familiarise yourself with the way their department/section works so that you can provide more effective back-up/support from your department. This usually works.

Do not complain about anything. Instead learn to present your comments in terms of how such and such change would improve company productivity and increase outcome and profits. This is called constructive commenting and more likely to be welcomed by your peers and managers than mere complaining and whinging. It also presents you as a person with managerial potential who is thinking in terms of developing the business.

Manage your time effectively and constructively. You will never be able to do all that is required so learn to deal with the important and essential and, if possible, delegate the rest. It is the important and essential outputs that will get you noticed by your managers, not the day-to-day humdrum tasks.

Seek a mentor if your organisation has a mentoring scheme.

Monitor your progress; what skills are you learning, what experience have you picked up, how has it contributed to the company’s performance etc. Always reference your development with your company’s performance and ensure you flag this up with your line-managers at appraisal times and other times [in a subtle way] so that they are aware you are committed to the company’s success and therefore worth retaining as a valued employee.

Wishing you success always.