You have successfully adapted to your new job, have become part of the team and, in principle, are already coping with current tasks quite easily. What's next? It depends on what your professional goals are and how you envision your career growth. If you have no idea yet, it’s time to figure it out and understand where to move next.
Any person, even one who is very afraid of change, still wants changes for the better in his life.
However, they usually occur only when a person himself does at least something to make things better. Or at least adequately imagines what is best for him personally. The purpose of the lesson: to obtain a tool for your professional self-knowledge and understanding of career goals that may not have been too obvious at the stage of choosing a profession.
After completing this lesson, you will receive specific guidelines and action algorithms to achieve your professional goals.
Before moving on to the main part, let's say that we under no circumstances recommend striving for change immediately after you have adapted to a new place. Of course, you should fully enjoy the result of your efforts and study the work process to the smallest detail, which, as a rule, takes one calendar year, because in every profession there are seasonal patterns of the work cycle. It's all about not stopping there. Especially if you haven’t achieved everything you wanted yet.
Why do you need to develop your career?
Everyone dreams of rapid career growth and the coveted leadership position. However, in order for the plan to come true, considerable efforts will have to be made. It is worth determining why you need professional promotion. Some people are hungry for development, others want to get rich, others just want to lead a team. After identifying the main goal, it is worth understanding ,
how to build a career.
- Someone thinks that he has stayed too long in one place. You need to find out whether you want innovation in this company or want to change your activities as a whole. In both cases, you need to look for trainings, courses, exhibitions and expand your skills.
- If the goal is to earn money, never focus your consciousness on it. First of all, a high-quality task is completed - and only after that the calculation. Do projects at a high level and you will be noticed - your salary will certainly increase significantly.
Self-development
Self-development is one of the engines of professional growth and development. Now there are a lot of opportunities for this, from the Internet to international educational programs. You just need to choose the path of self-development. Career development directly depends on self-education, so you need to constantly improve your skills.
Focus on one area while being interested in related areas. For example, if you are a specialist in marketing, knowledge in the field of management, sociology, and personnel management will be useful to you.
Don't isolate yourself - communicate with colleagues. Learn from the experience of professionals, read interviews with recognized experts in your field, and attend meetings with them. Many share their knowledge absolutely free of charge in their blogs, video blogs and books, which can be found freely available on the Internet.
Benefits of career growth
Many may say that working above the norm and putting more into work every day than you receive on your pay slip is a thankless task. It’s easier to monotonously cope with responsibilities, not take on too much and wait for your superiors to recognize you for the years of work you’ve done. On the one hand, the judgment is correct. But for those who are not used to standing in one place, completely different prospects open up.
Moving up the career ladder means self-improvement, learning new technologies, making acquaintances, meetings, expanding connections, the ability to adapt to other environments, constant exercise for the brain, and most importantly, an increase in the level of pay, which significantly affects your life outside of work. This is an opportunity to travel, provide education and benefits to your family.
Planning for Professional Success
The process of reaching the end point of the path requires a detailed route, be it ideal physical shape, a happy marriage or a director's chair. Create a road map that will give you precise direction.
- Determine what success at work means to you personally, because it looks different depending on your life priorities. Vasya is ready to disappear in the office for days, and Petya wants to spend time with his family.
- What's important in your career now, and where you'll be in 5 years: Imagine the long term.
- Draw a graph or chart for a year, 5 years, or 10 years, with a starting point, time periods such as annual periods, and a finishing point. Write down your desired positions and titles and keep the chart handy.
- Analyze your goals, break them down into their component parts, and set deadlines.
- Think about what you need to do, what knowledge you will need, and which of your colleagues can help you. Is the current company suitable for implementing the plans?
- Gather informal opinions and feedback about you from colleagues and managers. The more complete the feedback, the faster you will learn.
- Have an open conversation with management, such as your manager, about promotion opportunities and job vacancies. Often, there are more of them than it seems.
- Adjust your diagram, update your action plan with new goals depending on the situation, and don’t be afraid to deviate from a straight line.
What you need to know
Many people are interested in the question of how to achieve career growth, grow at work and not get stuck in one position for many years. In some cases, experience, having a diploma with honors and monotonously fulfilling the requirements of your superiors do not help you move up.
- Sincere love for one's work cannot but be appreciated. If it is not just a way to receive a salary, but the goal of your whole life, you will definitely be distinguished from employees who simply serve their turn from Monday to Friday.
- It is important to be able to listen and accept criticism and not repeat mistakes in the future.
- It will be much easier for a sociable person who knows how to carry on a conversation, ask for help or get information in a timely manner.
- No matter what kind of specialist you are, incorrect distribution of working time and irrational systematization of tasks will constantly prevent you from completing work quickly and not breaking deadlines.
Read educational books
An expert can afford to be anything he wants (remember Dr. House), but a leader must be the best among equals, an open person who can listen and understand a subordinate, say “no” in time, be able to multitask and find a way out of various situations.
Therefore, you will have to read and, in order to grow faster, read a lot: psychology, motivation, management, influence, public speaking, time planning. It's not bad to read 15-20 books a year, and it's doable.
It will also be a good help to attend trainings to develop your leadership skills, trainings with a practical program are especially good. You should attend at least 2-3 trainings a year, and don’t wait until they start offering them to you.
The role of education
The first and most important thing you need for career growth is education. In addition to the fact that you superficially study the basic provisions of your future field of activity, during an interview or when reviewing your resume, the HR department will definitely pay attention to this point.
Psychologist Daria Milai
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When applying, try to get into the highest ranked universities first. You shouldn’t go “just where”. You risk wasting 5-6 years of your life on useless skills. At the university, you can make useful contacts and even be recommended for a job by a particularly caring teacher.
Ask if there is an opportunity for additional education, attending advanced training courses, learning English, German or another foreign language.
Communication with professionals also provides invaluable knowledge. Therefore, when going to university, arm yourself with patience, adjust your memory and dare in several directions at once: specialized literature, business meetings, seminars, communication.
What personal qualities will you need?
Promotion requires:
- determination;
- responsibility;
- hard work.
Self-discipline is what is needed for career growth. It will allow you to soberly assess tasks and distribute your capabilities. Punctual individuals command respect and win you over from the very first meetings. But neglect of responsibilities and failure to meet deadlines creates an exclusively negative opinion of you as an employee.
Self-PR, neat and unobtrusive, will also work to your advantage. If a person’s name is always heard, he is known and respected, most likely he will be recommended for a leadership position.
Motivate yourself to achieve to grow your career, despite all sorts of obstacles. Take failures as a new impetus for development. If you look for excuses, are reluctant to analyze and correct mistakes, you should forget about a career shift.
Know how to position yourself correctly. Know your worth. If you mindlessly do a lot of tasks for pennies, they will get used to it.
You should come to work in decent attire, with neat hair and light perfume. Appearance sometimes acts as a powerful argument in getting a position. A stylish coquette in a dress with curled curls will be more attractive to the boss if she has the same experience and knowledge as a colleague in dirty jeans with an unstyled mop of hair.
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Responsibility in everything
Take responsibility, bear the burden, don't give up. Yes, you may be tired, but rest and move on. People like it when there is a responsible person nearby, and responsible in everything: he comes on time, gets things done, looks good, controls his emotions, does not abandon those who rely on him.
Become a guarantor of reliability in the team. You won’t even notice how you will rise above yourself – and up the career ladder.
The main thing is to be responsible for your words and actions, be consistent. This will serve you well.
Business as a career opportunity
Running a business is a step for responsible, courageous individuals who are ready to take risks. You need to evaluate your skills and understand that you will have to start small and gradually move forward. If you want to make a profit in the first month, this tactic is not suitable for you.
Business is a great way to figure out how to make a career. You must be prepared for the fact that you do not have assistants; you will have to make all decisions yourself and take responsibility for them. But there will be plenty of those who want to hinder you or do things better and better than you.
First, you need to write a clear business plan, define goals - both personal and professional - and follow the developed instructions.
Don’t be afraid to take risks – you can’t run your own business without the risk of losing profit. Find like-minded people or good advisers, constantly move among those who have been working in your field for a long time, expand your connections.
The time to start a business is different for everyone. Some people do this already as students, while others need many years of professional experience. It all depends on your acumen, reaction to market changes, and ability to anticipate innovative trends.
Motivate people
Tell people that they can do it, that they will achieve more, and that their mistakes and failures are temporary. Discuss with them in conversations the topics of honesty, hard work, personal growth, and responsibility. Convey to them the idea that money is not always the main thing, there are other values.
Believe me, although the majority of people do not want to listen to conversations about high matters and may think that everything is just about money, you can hear something else in personal conversations. Pull people forward, no matter what, and you will receive support.
Tips on how to build a career correctly
- Naturally, studying at a university is welcome. The more prestigious the university, the more interesting and in-demand the specialty, the easier it will be for you to achieve growth in the future .
Your language training is important for some companies - if you have the opportunity not to abandon foreign language courses, take the chance to be better than your colleagues. - You will never be appointed head of a department or head of a sector unless you have at least 2-3 years of experience in a specific position. Of course, this does not apply to cases where you were hired on a recommendation or acquaintance. To begin with, after graduating from university, it is better to apply for employment in a large, well-known company that can offer you a high-quality level of employee training, although not for a large fee. This will be a good start for further search for income.
- In each place you need to get the maximum number of skills. You never know what exactly will come in handy. For example, there is an opportunity to learn 1C, graphic editors, text programs - take on everything, especially if they offer you a certificate as a result.
- When leaving, maintain normal relations, and it does not matter on whose initiative you are leaving the organization. You may need a letter of recommendation, and you may run into the same people again.
Before you get into the team, you will probably have to go through a “casting”. Getting the coveted position directly depends on how you behave in the interview. Practice making a first impression in advance, think through answers and arguments to the most common questions. Answer with reasoning and confidence. After all, incorrect speech construction and ignorance of the basic laws in your field can turn even valuable knowledge into disadvantages.
Ask a question
Be involved
If your colleague has some insurmountable difficulty, help him cope with it and sometimes offer your help yourself. And if you don’t know how to solve a problem, help the employee find resources that will help with the solution, don’t stew in your own juice. This way you will gain the favor of other people, and also gain invaluable experience for free.
This also applies to unofficial corporate affairs: holidays, birthdays, misfortunes of colleagues. Participate, help with the organization, get people interested. Be an informal leader, but don’t get carried away - there are cases when employees become good “social activists,” but nothing more.
What is not recommended to do in the workplace so as not to ruin your career?
Here are some basic conditions for career growth.
- Be punctual. If you come to a new organization, create the impression that you know how to control what is happening. Even if you were not previously distinguished by this quality, it is worth reconsidering your foundations.
- Do not spread gossip and do not participate in conversations where colleagues, and especially management, are discussed. Even if you really want to share your impressions, keep them to yourself, there are a lot of “well-wishers” around you who are just waiting for how to convey such information to your superiors.
- Don't show off your advantage in experience or knowledge, especially if it differs greatly from the average level in the office. People tend to envy and even hate upstarts, and, accordingly, put a damper on their career prospects. Bring your potential to work.
- Keep your personal life under lock and key, try not to “coo” with your lovers on the phone in the presence of colleagues. Learn to separate personal space and work relationships.
- You need to point out the mistakes of your colleagues carefully and delicately, without showing how great you are for discovering the flaw.
- Don’t be lazy to work, gain new knowledge and skills, don’t stand still. Feel free to sign up for trainings and seminars, even if it seems that they are useless and you know everything.
And one more rule - watch your appearance. Hairstyle, clothing and physical shape are also important .
Know how to listen to people
Try to participate as little as possible in useless conversations and do not initiate them, but participate more in constructive conversations. Listen to what the other person is telling you. Believe me, when you are silent and think about what is said, you look smarter.
You must be able to listen carefully, try to do it objectively and understand what your interlocutor wants to convey to you and why. Learn to speak when you really need to. And during the conversation, listen as if they were telling you an entertaining story.
