How to take control of your career
According to Prudential’s Pulse of the American Worker Special Report, 79% of managers say they have told their direct reports what they need to do to get promoted but only 50% of employees say they’ve communicated this information.
The bottom line: don’t wait for your manager to steer the ship. Get in the driver’s seat and steer yourself there.
Companies and managers struggle to develop career roadmaps, and they are focused on competencies but not on how you can take action to get there on your own. Unfortunately, most managers lack the time, desire, or know-how to help you build your career. Annual reviews are often skipped or sometimes done and never even reviewed with the employee!
What concrete actions can you take to work toward achieving your goals?
Career Goals
Define what you want and what you set out to achieve and communicate it to your boss. You may think your boss knows what they are because you’ve had a passing conversation or written in an email, but it’s important to actually sit down and discuss it. From there, you’ll want to create a written plan and timeline for achieving the goals to steer you in a new career direction or get you promoted. Your boss needs to read and approve this after your discussion. Establish a future date to check in on your progress against those goals. Once you’ve done this, track your progress against your goals using a spreadsheet, weekly report system, or file.
Not sure what you want? Focus on identifying your strengths and interests. For example, what do your friends call to get your advice about? If you think back to a great week at work, what were you doing? Ask your friends or family what they think are your inherent strengths.
Professional Development
The next step is to Identify the opportunities to help you grow.
Upskilling – Are there soft or hard skills you want or need to develop to get to the next stage? If you don’t know, how can you find this out? Talk to HR about areas where they are having trouble recruiting people. Set up meetings with leaders to ask about what soft skills they desire in people on their teams and what skills they think are most important for success at the company in X area.
Learning - Research what’s available: internal, external, and online training to figure out what will help you achieve your goals. You can also ask your boss or other leaders to sit in on different meetings to learn about other business functions.
Job shadowing - Find other teams where your skills may be an asset and offer to help on a project. You can also identify an individual you admire and ask to shadow them.
Mentors - Identify career mentors who have jobs you aspire to and ask them for a virtual or in-person coffee date.
Career Resources
There are so many resources - free and paid - out there to help you in your learning journey. Many are easy to fit into a commute, lunch hour, or you can schedule a specified amount of time each week and set your schedule to keep you on track. So much is out there you can take advantage of!
Books
Podcasts
Webinars
Networking groups
Associations
Photo credit: Medienstürmer