Growing within your industry can be a really exciting time. If you’re in a job you love, or in a role you’re excelling in, levelling up is going to be on your radar.
These 4 tips for improving career development are guaranteed to help you stand out from the crowd, and push your career in the right direction – up!
- Build an Action Plan
If you want to improve you career development, you’ve got to know where you’re going.
Creating a career development action plan can help you:
- Identify your strengths and weaknesses
- Set clear goals
- Set achievable milestones
- Develop your skills
- Accomplish career success
You’ll want to start off by identifying what you want out of your career, and where you want to go with it. What are you good at? Where do you excel?
Also think about which areas of your career you need to improve upon. Which skills do you need to develop? Where is your knowledge lacking?
Once you’ve got a better idea regarding where you are within your career, and what aspects you need to improve, you can set goals: how and when you are going to go about making those improvements?
Try and consolidate a timeline for skill development, project completions, meetings, and other opportunities or important dates at work.
Don’t overextend yourself. Set achievable milestones you think you can realistically meet. Working to tight timescales can be motivating for some, but if you are consistently missing these milestones, it could end up being off putting.
Rewarding yourself for achieving goals and milestones is essential in your enjoyment of your career development – you want to encourage yourself to reach for that next milestone. Ultimately, if you have fun throughout the process, you’re more likely to finish and achieve career success.
- Get Mentored
If you have an opportunity to shadow a colleague or manager at work, or someone offers to mentor you – DO IT!
Getting mentored from someone in a position you want to be in at some point, will give you vital experience and help you gain essential knowledge and skills.
Shadowing someone can help you learn more about a certain position, and help you decide whether it is really right for you. If you’re mulling over multiple options, try shadowing a person in each of the roles you’d like and discover which one fits you best.
Mentoring can be a prolonged process, happening over weeks, months, or the duration of a certain role. It can go on for as long as the mentoring party is willing. Mentoring helps you build skills, and your mentor can give you tips and advice on certain projects you may be working on to further your career development.
Shadowing is usually slightly shorter – you are essentially watching someone else work so would likely do so for a week. It’s still a worthwhile thing to do, especially if you are new to a role or team and want to get a grip on daily procedures. When shadowing someone you can note-take, ask questions about certain tasks they’re doing, or simply observe.
- Utilize Training Programs
Taking relevant courses and enrolling onto training programs can help to improve your career development.
Some businesses host their own development days, have internal staff training courses, or may pay for you to take an external course.
If an opportunity to develop your skills is there, why not take it? It can only benefit you in the long run. Make sure your boss is aware you’re taking the course – you want them to be impressed with your ambition.
If you’re looking to move jobs, listing a course relevant to your career on your CV looks great – it shows you have interest in the industry you want to excel in.
Utilizing training programs and courses shows a clear drive for self-improvement and desire to progress within your chosen career.
- Go the Extra Mile
Whether you’re looking for career development at your current company, or are looking to progress with another, going the extra mile in the role that you’re in is going WOW your current manager, as well as make for good examples in future job interviews.
Tenacity is a game changer! And there are multiple ways in which you can show your eagerness to develop your career:
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Volunteer to complete challenging projects |
· Proves you’re not one to shy away from a tough task · You seek out challenges while evaluating the risks · If you can take the lead of a challenging project that’s even better! · You love problem solving |
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Assist others |
· Helping others with their projects/ work can show you are compassionate and friendly · You are eager to help co-workers and see others succeed – a great team player · Proves you have the knowledge and skills to mentor and instruct others |
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Discuss career progression with your boss or HR |
· You won’t know if an opportunity is available until you ask · Seeking out opportunities shows your determination and drive to develop in your career · Even if there isn’t any jobs on offer at the time, your boss or HR rep will take note of your goals – they might then recommend you when a suitable position arises |
Follow these 4 tips to improve your career development and bag that promotion!