When you were in school, you were told to make good grades so that when you graduated, you would be able to get a good job and have a great career. Getting a good job is not as easy as it used to be, especially when you don’t have the right skills and knowledge. This is one thing that they forgot to tell you in school.
When you were in school, you were told to make good grades so that when you graduate you would be able to get a good job. Getting a good job is not as easy as it used to be especially when you don’t have the right skills and knowledge. This is one thing that they forgot to tell you in school.
The labour market keeps on becoming competitive with each passing day and to stay on top, you need to be very good at what you do and to maintain your job, you need to have a good performance and stand out. This is very important if you want to move forward.
Workplace success boils down to you doing certain things to stay current in your career and industry.
Tips On How To Keep Your Career Updated
In your workplace, career progression and recognition is one thing that should be on your list of goals but what should set you apart from other professionals is your ability and willingness to learn as well as the right mindset. Here are some tips you can use to keep your career updated today.
Step One: Be Creative And Know When To Take Initiative
As the world continues to evolve and new trends continue to come out, the requirements for a successful career are much more than doing everything possible to avoid losing your job (things like coming early to work). There is a lot of competition in every niche and companies and employers are looking for people who can bring new ideas to the table, do things without being told, think and find opportunities for improvements, start new projects, come up with new solutions as well as look for greener pastures for the business.
Step Two: Assess Your Performance
Do not wait for the annual assessment that is usually done in workplaces before you know or grade your performance. Do your assessments by yourself. Your manager or boss is not responsible for your success, you are. It is important to grade your performance by yourself if you want to grow. Of course, it is common for people to be biased when assessing their performance but this should not be so in your case if you are serious about your career success. An ideal way to assess yourself would be to identify a good number of goals and set a deadline for achieving them. Start with short-term goals especially if you are new to the job. After the completion of every goal, grade your performance. This will help you know if you are getting better or not.
Step Three: Eagerness To Learn
To keep your career updated, you must be ready to learn. To become a leader or a successful person, you must be willing to learn and accept constructive criticism. Just like what was said in the introductory paragraph, one thing you should know is that no matter the school you graduated from or the grades you had, your professional life will always be different from the life you had in school. It might take you a while to get used to your job so be ready to receive a lot of questions as well as ask a lot of questions. When it is easy for you to be taught, you show your employer that you are coachable and ready to pay attention and learn everything you need to know about your career. This can also make your employer show positive interest in you and help you achieve some of your career goals.
Step Four: Think Proactively
This simply means you should take initiative and be one step ahead of your employer. Be one step ahead of your boss by asking yourself what your boss would have done next in a particular situation. Doing this will help you finish certain tasks before the deadline and also give you time to attend to other tasks.
Step Five: Proper Communication
If you do not communicate with your colleagues at work, how will you get the information that is needed for you to stay updated and succeed in your career? You need to have good communication with your colleagues as well as have a good employee and employer relationship with your boss. When your boss gives you a task to do, it is right that you inform him or her about the completion of the tasks once you are done with it.
Step Six: Create Small Goals For Yourself
You can decide to learn some new skills to help you do better at your workplace. This is an example of creating small goals for yourself. Make a list of some of these skills you want to learn and once you have a list, give yourself deadlines to learn the skills. This will prompt your subconscious mind to always act based on the timeline. It will also make you become more efficient and productive because you will have the opportunity to move on to attend to another task. For every goal you accomplish, reward yourself. You can also ask someone to evaluate you or you do the evaluation by yourself. This will help you improve on your performance in your career.
Step Seven: Go Out Of Your Comfort Zone
They say that one can only achieve success when he or she moves outside of their comfort zone. This is something that has been proven to be true and it applies to everyone including yourself. When you step out of your comfort zone, you stretch yourself beyond your area of expertise. Try out something new like public speaking if you have always been afraid of speaking in public. You can do this by engaging in presentations at your workplace or networking with people.
Step Eight: Be Inquisitive
Ask questions about your industry. Study your industry, the dynamics and how things are done. Be up to date with everything about your industry as if you have an exam you are preparing for. You can also ask for help from your colleagues or your boss. Also, when you have new knowledge, you can decide to share it with your coworkers. This can lead to an intellectual conversation that you and your colleagues can benefit from.
Step Nine: Network The Right Way
If you are the type of person that sends a standard message or LinkedIn invite, you need to stop doing that. Standard messages are those types of messages addressing all your contacts or connections the same way. Every connection is unique and you should portray this in your message to them. Personalize every message, tell the recipients the similar qualities both of you share, how you would want to help them and if you also need their help for anything. In the case when you know nothing about the person, it is best to ask for an introduction politely. When you network the right way, you live a positive impression of yourself in the mind of your contact. Sending personalized messages is not only used in texts. In a physical conversation when you go for meetings or conferences in your industry, it is best to approach people the same way you would do over text.
Step Ten: Have A Career Mentor
The importance of getting yourself a mentor or someone to coach you especially when you are new in the field cannot be overemphasised. Having a mentor is one of the best moves you can make to keep your career updated. A mentor gives you resources that will help you move on the right path, learn important skills and avoid the mistakes they made. All the knowledge they will be passing down to you was gotten from their own experience. If your mentor has a paid mentorship class, it is advisable to enrol for the class if you can afford the fee. Enrolling in your mentor’s class gives you exclusive access to the person.
Step Eleven: Always Look Out For Better Opportunities
There are unlimited opportunities in your niche. Even if you are happy with your present role, most times, for you to reach the height of your career, you need to move from one level to another. It is advisable to always listen and be on the lookout for better opportunities. Have your mind set on a particular position and work on yourself in preparation for when you get the new role. Also bear in mind that the new opportunity you are hoping for might not come from your industry. This is why it is good to equip yourself with knowledge from your industry and knowledge from other industries.
Conclusion
All the steps mentioned above has been used by people who are successful and are doing great in their industry. No one gets it the first time so for you to master these skills you have to continuously practise and make conscious efforts towards achieving success in your career.
Just like every other thing in life, preparation is very important if you want to keep your career updated all the time. Acquiring and applying the right knowledge at the right time will help you become an expert in your career and make you stand out amongst others in your field.
