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For most people, their career is where they spend the majority of their waking hours. In addition, it generates the majority of their earned income over their lifetime.
Given this knowledge, why do so many people leave their career advancement up to chance?
If you’re serious about getting the most out of your career, you need to be intentional with how you approach your career advancement.
You can’t just wait for opportunity to arrive. You need to take measures to seek it out and be positioned to take advantage of it when you do find it.
If you want to take control of your career, here are 8 ways to be intentional about your career advancement.
Table of Contents
Develop Your Personal Brand
Similar to how your organization has a brand, you have one as well. Your personal brand consists of what people think of you.
This includes your:
- Appearance – attire, body language and posture
- Personality – behavior, communication skills and attitude
- Competence – knowledge, skills and experience
- Differentiation – those traits that separate you from others; that make you unique
- Motivation – why you do what you do. Are you motivated by money? Family? Success?
- Authenticity – How honest are you about yourself (i.e. who you are, what you like and dislike, what your values are)? Does what you say and do align?
Having a well-developed personal brand can ensure you’re front-of-mind when the next career advancement opportunity or high-profile assignment comes up (especially those opportunities that align with your personal brand).
Create and Follow a Strategic Career Plan
It’s difficult to get where you want to go if you don’t know where you’re going or how to get there. That’s what a strategic career plan is for.
To start, take some time to think about where you would ultimately like to end up in your career; your destination or long-term goal. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a specific position, but the more specific you make it, the easier it will be to plan for.
Next, consider the education, experience, and skills you’ll ultimately need to get where you’d like to go.
Also, consider the smaller steps along the way including different positions (or even companies), education, mentorships, volunteer opportunities, geographical locations, etc.
Turn these into actionable goals you need to accomplish and assign them a specified timeframe (i.e. complete an MBA in 3 years or move up into the next position within 5 years).
Once you have written down where you want to go and the smaller goals you’ll need to achieve along the way to get there, you now have a strategic career plan.
From here, focus on achieving the short-term goals, specifically those goals in the 1-3 year time horizon. Make plans to revisit your plan at least once a year and adapt your plan as needed.
Practice Prioritization
To be a high performer, you need to make sure that you are completing the highest priority tasks first.
To start, take some time at the end of each week to prepare for the coming week by writing down all of the outstanding tasks that need to be completed.
Next, consider which tasks are of the highest importance and are most time-sensitive. If anything is important and needs to be completed in the coming week, make it top priority. You may want to block out some time on your calendar to work on these tasks in an attempt to minimize distractions.
From there, prioritize the remainder of your tasks by focusing on time first, then importance within each time frame.
For example, if you have three tasks due within two weeks, four tasks within a month, and three tasks within two months; you would prioritize the three tasks due within two weeks first, then prioritize the three tasks by importance. Then, you would move on to the four tasks due within a month, and so on.
At the beginning of the next week, reassess the list of priorities you created to ensure nothing has changed; if something has changed (i.e. a task has become more or less important), update your list for the week. Continue doing this at the beginning of each day to ensure you’re focusing on the highest priority tasks.
Focus on One Task at a Time
Humans are not capable of multitasking. What we do instead is switch back and forth between tasks, losing focus and causing delays in the process.
To complete your tasks efficiently, you should focus on one task at a time and schedule enough time to complete it in as few sessions as possible.
Speak Up and Be Heard
This is something I actually struggled with early in my career. I consider myself an introvert, so my natural inclination in a meeting or large group is to listen.
However, there have been multiple occasions, especially early in my career, where I had a good idea or thought, but refrained from speaking up during the meeting. Instead, I would approach my boss after the meeting and let him know my thoughts.
This ultimately accomplished the same goal from an organizational standpoint, but didn’t help with my personal brand or exposure within the company.
To be noticed, you need to speak up when you have a thought or idea that contributes to the conversation.
This isn’t relegated to just meetings either, if you have an idea or proposal for how to solve a company problem, by all means, speak up.
If you think of an idea for a great teambuilding activity your department could do together, throw the idea out there.
The worst someone could say is no; and honestly, it’s good to hear no every now and then.
The more you contribute, the more people will recognize you as someone that provides value to the organization and the more exposure you’ll gain to different parts of the organization.
This will pay dividends when you’re ready to advance in your career.
Ask for What you Need
Is there a project coming up that you’d like to be a part of or even lead?
Is there a training opportunity that would help you gain the education and skills to be better at your job (and provide more value to the organization)?
If you’ve identified an opportunity to advance your professional development, ask your supervisor if you can do it. Again, the worst they can say is no.
To have a better chance of saying yes, do some homework first. Prepare a quick document that outlines why you think you’re ready for the opportunity and why this opportunity is not only good for your development, but will ultimately provide value to the company.
Grow Your Professional Network
Have you ever been to a networking event and found yourself gravitating towards the people you already knew?
If this is you, you’re missing a valuable opportunity to expand your professional network.
I’ll admit, it’s a little intimidating to break out on your own and find strangers to chat up at these events, but it’s necessary if you want to grow your network.
In addition to social and networking events, you can grow your professional network by joining professional organizations, asking to be part of or lead cross-functional teams at work, volunteering, training events, etc.
When building your network, be intentional about the folks you let into your inner circle. Seek out people that will give you good advice and cheer you on when you take risks. These will be the same people that will think of you when a great opportunity presents itself.
Take Advantage of Free and Low-Cost Resources to Advance Your Development
There is a myriad of free and low-cost resources that you can use to advance your professional development.
Your public library offers many free resources like books/ebooks, movies, audiobooks, access to career and job-hunting resources, access to research, etc.
Many universities now offer free courses on platforms like EdX or Coursera.
In addition, typically for a small monthly fee, websites like LinkedIn Learning offer classes to help you build your skills and knowledge.
Even going back to college is a lot more affordable now with universities like Western Governors University. They charge a low, flat-rate tuition and offer the ability to advance at your own pace in health/nursing, business, teaching, or information technology.
Conclusion
Your career is much too important to be left up to chance. You need to take control of the course of your career and steer it in the direction you want it to go.
Use the 8 ways to be intentional about your career advancement to help you to take back control of your career trajectory.
What ways are you intentional about your career advancement?