Buch lesen: «Career Management»
Career Management
Secrets
The experts tell all!
Carolyn Boyes
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Learn how to manage your career
Take control
1.1 Be an entrepreneur
1.2 Take a personal inventory
1.3 Discover your STARs
1.4 Discover your three Ps
1.5 Carry out your own 360
Dare to dream
2.1 Be visionary
2.2 Be SMART
2.3 Step forth
2.4 Commit 100%
2.5 Find a role model
Market yourself
3.1 Brand yourself
3.2 Leave a lasting impression
3.3 Have an elevator pitch
3.4 ‘Act as if’
3.5 Maintain a broad network
3.6 Create a buzz
3.7 Link in for luck
3.8 Be visible inside your company
3.9 Write it well
Be a rising star
4.1 Align yourself with your organization
4.2 Always deliver
4.3 Be positive
4.4 Find a niche
4.5 Become your own coach
4.6 Keep career records
4.7 Update your CV
4.8 Sell your ideas
Strike a balance
5.1 Know your priorities
5.2 Get ready for risk
5.3 Do it your way
5.4 Be a career juggler
5.5 Trust your instinct
Change your career
6.1 Be flexible
6.2 Open up your options
6.3 Plan your campaign
6.4 Keep research records
6.5 Buy a coffee
6.6 Prepare for interviews
6.7 Be memorable and likeable
6.8 Know your fit
6.9 Get ready for green
Go it alone
7.1 Have passion and a plan
7.2 Be a detail person
7.3 Fix your fee
7.4 Be on the web
7.5 Count your cash
7.6 Define your target market
7.7 Be great with people
7.8 Have a contract
7.9 Be resilient and persistent
Jargon buster
Further reading
About The Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Learn how to manage your career
Most people fall into a career by accident. They might enjoy success or find themselves stuck in a job that’s not fulfilling. By contrast, if you manage your career you take control of what you do, whether that’s climbing the corporate ladder, starting your own business or perhaps going part-time.
I have spent more than a decade helping people all over the world decide what to do with their lives. Many of the people I coach have already worked for years, and some are just starting out. Surprisingly, it doesn’t seem to matter what age people are, or where they come from or how successful they have been. Most people face the same sort of issues in trying to decide what to do next. They generally haven’t spent enough time focusing on what work suits them best, what their long and short term goals might be and how best to put these into action.
Even some of those who are successful know some of the secrets but forget others. I am no different. I had a successful first career in international business before making a career change, and I had to find out many of these secrets for the first time. That’s why you will find 50 secrets here, divided into seven easy-to-follow chapters:
• Take control. Suggests that you step back and take a look afresh at who you are and what’s important to you.
• Dare to dream. How to create goals that are right for you.
• Be a rising star. Lets you into the secrets of how to get promoted and rise within an organization.
• Market yourself. Shows the importance of making yourself known in your career in order to achieve what you want.
• Create a life balance. Helps you explore what to do if stress is getting to you and you want a change.
• Be ready for change. Gives you key pointers for any successful career change. If you want to change or are forced to change careers this is what to do next.
• Be entrepreneurial. Explains what will make you successful if you decide to leave paid employment and start up on your own.
If you follow these seven chapters of secrets, you will know how to manage your career sucessfully.
Create an achievable career plan and you are already on your way to a well-managed career for the rest of your life.
Take control
Start your career management by getting to know yourself. Applying the secrets in this first chapter will allow you to take a step back and think about not only what you are good at but also what motivates you. You can use this knowledge at every stage of your career to plan your next steps.
1.1 Be an entrepreneur
Do you take responsibility for your career or do you let your career just happen to you? In the old way of doing things you would leave school or university and expect to have a job for life. But with a changing world you need to stop and take stock.
The world is changing so rapidly now that there is no guarantee you will have a job for life, nor that the company you join will continue to exist, nor even that your industry will still exist in the next decade or so. There is only one thing you can do in a world like this, and that is to be an entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurs assume that they will have to make their own fortune (and I mean fortune in the sense of both luck and money). Entrepreneurs don’t let things happen to them, they make things happen for them. This can be expressed by an equation: cause > effect.
one minute wonder Take a step back. Think about where you are in your career right now. Decide to make your career successful and fulfilling every day. You are in charge.
“The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude of mind” William James, psychologist
• On which side of the equation are you? Do you cause the situations you are in or are you generally at the effect of what other people do? Are you an entrepreneur or are you passive?
• Decide for yourself. You can use the equation cause > effect as a reminder to take responsibility for your career decisions.
The self-employed are entrepreneurs. Every day, they take responsibility for making their careers as successful as possible. On the other hand, many employees of both large and small companies fall into the habit of being passive. They turn up to work on time and assume that as long as they do everything adequately, then their working lives will continue at an even pace, and they will always be paid until 30 or so years later the career comes to a close.
In the new world of rapid change this isn’t enough. Every employee needs to be ‘at cause’ for their career.
You need to think like an entrepreneur if you want to make the right kind of progress in your career.
1.2 Take a personal inventory
One of the first things you can do to get on track in your career is take a personal inventory. This means looking at what you are really good at. Include not only your work skills and knowledge but also your natural talents and personal strengths.
The most thorough way to do this is to list each job role or activity you’ve carried out in the past and analyse each in turn. Think about the skills you used as well as any knowledge you gained. You will probably identify certain skills that you use consistently more than others.
case study The first job Sally had was in insurance. She had to deal with numbers and information all day long. She was bored and constantly passed over for promotion. Sally spent 10 years thinking she would never have much of a career. Then her company went through hard times and her job was made redundant. Sally took the opportunity to take a hard look at her skills and experience. She took a psychometric test, which confirmed that she needed a job focused on people. Now she works in a small company doing direct sales. “My biggest skill is in talking to people,” she says. “I feel much happier and I have been so successful that I was promoted after a year!”
Next, look at the broad areas below. How do you rate your own skills in each of the areas: above average – good – average – below average? Write down the results.
• People. For example, influencing people, persuading, supporting, helping, negotiating with, selling to, entertaining or teaching them.
• Ideas. Being innovative, experimental, visionary or creative; being able to think well in the abstract, about future possibilities; how to change things for the better or improvise, design.
• Things. For example, manual work, dealing with machinery or equipment, using tools, having practical skills.
• Data. For example, handling details of numbers or information, interpreting and presenting data, IT, organizing and administrating.
Compare your list of the skills you have used in the past to the list of what you are good at. You can then make a new list combining the two: what you are good at and what you have experience in. This gives you an inventory of the strengths you will be selling in your career.
Find out whether you are naturally better with people, ideas, things or data.
1.3 Discover your STARs
What have you done in your career so far? What have you done that you are proud of? An achievement is something you have undertaken with a result attached. If you know what’s worked for you in the past, you can create more of the same type of achievement in the future and form a focused vision for your career.
The word achievement can sound quite scary to a lot of people. They tend to say, “I haven’t achieved anything” because an achievement sounds as if it should describe something huge like climbing Everest or becoming CEO of a company. But of course you have achieved lots of things, in your work life and in your personal life.
one minute wonder Gain insight about what you value through your achievements. Look at each achievement and ask: “What is it about this achievement that is important to me?” If there isn’t anything important, then decide not to do more of this type of work. If all your valuable achievements are in your personal life then maybe your work is lacking, so stop and pay heed.
An achievement is simply an action you have taken with a successful ending. There is a very simple way of remembering it: the STAR format. Try writing this down.
• S = Situation. Think of a situation you have been in at work. Describe it in detail on your piece of paper.
• T = Task. What was the task you were given to do in this situation or what was the responsibility you chose to take on?
• A = Action. An achievement isn’t something that is passive. What was the action you took to carry out this task? Did you organize? Lead? Administer? Calculate? Sell? Persuade?
• R = Result. What was the positive result or benefit? Did it save money? Help people? Support a team? Make things more efficient?
Use your career achievements to work out your skills (also known as competencies). Take an achievement and write down what skills you used to get the result e.g. communication, leadership, teamworking. Which skills do you use most?
To understand yourself better, start making a list of at least one achievement from every part of your career so far. It will help you to develop a list of your key skills. Remember, you can always transfer your skills from one job to another.
Use the STAR format to write down your achievements and work out what you do well.
1.4 Discover your three Ps
It’s no point being fantastic at your job if you hate it. You may make a reasonable career but you will lack any joy in what you do. The ingredients that make a career both fun and successful are Passions, Purpose and Principles. Get to know what yours are and make sure you include them in your career plan.
Your Passions are the things you love doing, that interest you and bring joy into your day. The quickest way to discover your Passions are to make three lists:
• A list of the activities you need to have on a daily basis to make you feel satisfied.
• A list of the activities you ideally like to have on a daily basis but which aren’t essential.
• A list of the activities you definitely don’t want if you are to keep passionate about your career.
one minute wonder Here’s a quick career check. List all the different roles you have had in your career. What worked for you in each role? Check out where you fulfilled your passion, purpose and principles and where you lacked these.
Your Purpose is the sense of fulfilment you get from your career when you are on track. You know you are fulfilling your purpose when you feel you are ‘doing the right thing’, and what you are ‘really in business to do’. Think about what really gives meaning to your career to discover your purpose.
Your Principles are the third p. These are the ethical and moral standards that you need to abide by to feel ok about your career. For example if you are a vegetarian but forced to work with meat then you won’t be working according to your principles. When you honour your principles you feel good about your career and feel it fits into how you want to live your life as a whole.
“You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it” Oprah Winfrey
The three Ps are Passion, Purpose and Principles. Identify yours.
1.5 Carry out your own 360
A 360-degree report is a tool used in business whereby an employee gets feedback on their performance from a variety of colleagues and clients, ranging from their boss to people below them. It is called a 360 because it gives a full range of views and a rounded sense of your performance and strengths and skills.
You don’t have to wait until your company offers you this opportunity. Carry out your own informal 360 to understand how other people see you in a work situation. It’s easy to do, and you can do it whether you are currently working or not.
one minute wonder A very effective question to set people thinking on your behalf is, “If there is one thing I could do to improve my chances of progressing my career, what would you advise?”
“A successful life is one lived through understanding and pursuing one’s own path, not chasing after the dreams of others”
Chin-Ning Chu, Business Author
• Pick a handful of people. They should know you well and come into contact with you on a regular basis. Up to ten is enough and ideally more than five.
• Ask for honest opinions. Ask if they would be willing to answer some basic questions for you. The key is that you ask them to be honest and that you stay open and don’t be defensive so that they feel they can say what really needs to be said.
• Keep things objective. A good way to extract objective and honest advice is simply to ask if they have any specific examples of what you do well already as well as any areas you could improve. The more specific they are, the easier you will find it to act on their advice. If you are not clear what they mean, ask them, and again be open. Remember this is feedback, not criticism.
Take the feedback without being defensive and you will become aware of your potential weak areas as well as your strengths.
Ask people who know you well for feedback on your strengths, weaknesses and what you could do to be more effective.
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