A new year often comes with re-energization and a desire to rise up the corporate ladder, switch career paths, pursue entrepreneurship or even get a pay rise. All these are hard earned and it’s no mean feat. The goals, however, need to be broken down into smaller ones for easy monitoring and review. The following are excellent resolutions that can propel your career.
A new year often comes with rejuvenated energy and desire to rise up the corporate ladder, switch career paths, pursue entrepreneurship or even to get a pay rise. All these are hard earned and it’s no mean fete. Achieving all that is a deliberate and conscious goal that should be pursued throughout out the year. The goals, however, need to be broken down into smaller ones for easy monitoring and review. The following are excellent resolutions that can propel your career;
Make a Plan
An achieving go-getter spends time planning or figuring out the direction they want their career path to take. They write down daily, weekly, monthly and yearly targets they wish to meet. They also take time to regularly review what they have achieved so far. Planning ensures that you do not waiver along the way and lose track of your career objective(s).
Image Building and Personal Branding
A lot of work goes into improving your self-image and personal brand. This can be achieved by updating your resume and social media profiles. If you want to pursue a career path in digital media, you should have an active online presence on LinkedIn or even write your own blog. Image building begins by changing your wardrobe if need be, gaining a new skill or pursuing a hobby that adds value to your overall career objective.
Personal branding, on the other hand, entails what you want to be known for. This is what will enable you to stand out in your chosen career path and grow. A personal brand helps you to be identified with your expertise and thus, you should strive to build a credible brand that identifies you as an expert in your field.
Network Actively
The tricky job search is often made easier by networking. You should purpose to attend conferences or professional events that add value to you. This way, you get to meet people with similar interests as you and you share knowledge and expertise, which can help you grow in your career. Joining a LinkedIn group, Facebook page or group or other online discussions is an excellent way of establishing networks. Take time to reconnect with friends, family and acquaintances that share your career vision. Remember, your networks reflects on your net worth.
Find the Right Career Mentor
Mentors are pillars in career development. The best mentors often help you learn and grow by sharing their wisdom with you. These are also people who can help you navigate your career success and people you can turn to in times of difficulties.
Just as it’s important to find someone you respect to mentor you, it also important to mentor others. You don’t have to be in a formal leadership position or have years and years of experience to mentor someone else. This way, you also share knowledge and help others grow. Therefore, find a mentor in the new year and mentor someone else.
Replenish Your Energy
Plot out your day offs, annual leaves and holidays and develop a plan for spacing out and for focusing on activities that you really value. Taking some days off work will help you evaluate and review the progress of your career path. This way you can monitor what really works for you and stop sweating things that are not adding any value to you.
Challenge Yourself
The whole purpose of making resolutions is so that you can improve yourself. However, you have to set realistic yet challenging goals. If, for example, you want to become the head of your department within the year, ensure that you set out to do things that will help you to rise. Do not limit yourself to the mundane. If you have been doing things inappropriately, this is the time to ensure that you get them right so that you can achieve your greater goal. Make sure that your goal pushes you out of your comfort zone.
Be Committed
It is not enough to set the most attractive goals on paper. If you do not make a deliberate attempt to achieve them. As part of setting your goals, make yourself accountable to yourself or another person if you cannot be accountable to yourself.
Commitment helps you to know when you need to put in more effort and actually helps you work towards your milestones without being reminded. That is why you need to ensure that you come up with realistic and achievable goals for your career. If you come up with crazy goals, you will not believe in them and you will not be committed to achieving them. Set realistic goals so that your commitment can remain steadfast.
Gain New Skills
In a world that is constantly changing, sticking to only what you know is suicidal to your career. Purpose to learn new things that pertain to your career. Perhaps it is time to take that professional course you have been dreaming about or pursue that Masters degree you have been planning for decades.
In the era of self-learning, you can also use resources that are in abundance online, to gain new skills that will eventually be instrumental in your career growth.
Go for the Gold
Do not be afraid of trying. Self-confidence and belief come from within you and are based on self-awareness that stems from qualifications, experience and personal attributes that suit the jobs in question.
Most job seekers are afraid of being rejected, that’s why if you’re able to overcome your fears, you will be unstoppable. If you want to be a successful job seeker, apply for jobs that you qualify for and those that give you an opportunity to tackle greater challenges. Do not be afraid of a job because you don’t have one or two not-so-major requirements. You might not get hired right away but being interviewed for roles that require more experience and skills will enhance your ability to sell yourself in future interviews. Plus, you can also get leads from job recruiters and other people you’ll meet during your interviews.
Do Not Be Afraid to Ask for Help
Successful job seekers are just highly intelligent people who can handle anything that comes their way. The reason they’re able to handle every problem and obstacle they face is that they’re not afraid to ask for help. Successful people had to start somewhere, and they started by asking questions. They know that they cannot know everything and are willing to learn from mentors in their professional networks.
If you’re being held back by your fear to ask for help, you won’t be able to make progress. Don’t feel as if you are a burden or think that you’re not going to get the help you need. People love helping other people but just remember not to bombard them with too many questions at once.
Ask the right people who can lead you to more job interviews, opportunities, new leads, professional contacts, and resume advice. Don’t let pride prevent you from accepting help and keep in mind that you can always repay people’s kindness later on.
Allot More Time Job Hunting Than Anything Else
Job hunting is a job in itself and it requires dedication. One of the biggest mistakes that most job seekers make is that they don’t treat job hunting like a full-time job. If you would really like to land your dream job this year, it’s important to reach as many companies as possible.
You can try making business cards, updating your resume or getting a professional to review your CV for you, starting a blog, or creating a professional website. You can also attend career fairs and seminars in the industry you would want to join.
If you feel there are not enough jobs in your area then you’re going to have to cast a wide net. Consider some of the following options to widen your job search:
- Edit each CV to suit the job you are applying
- Make sure your resume is keyword optimized
- Write a new cover letter targeted at the jobs you want
- Practice interviewing with your friends or family
- Search through all of your resources – online job boards, newspapers, LinkedIn, bulletin boards, etc. for employment ads
- Improve your skills by taking a personality test, a numerical reasoning test, or a verbal reasoning test
- Attend conferences and networking events to open yourself up to new opportunities
- Update your BrighterMonday and LinkedIn profiles and get recommendations and references
Make Your Presence Known
The unemployment crisis in Kenya is in an all-time high. If you want to have a competitive advantage over other job seekers this year, you have to ensure that your potential recruiters or employers can find you. Create winning profiles on leading job sites so your name will pop up when employers do a search. It is much better if you’ll include a portfolio or sample work so employers can gauge your suitability and your skills. You might also want to check and clean up your social media accounts.
Just like successful job seekers, you need to be aggressive and make sure that you make your presence known. When recruiters find you and sets up an interview, you can then position yourself better and highlight your skills and experience.
Have A Growth Mindset
Having a growth mindset is really important when it comes to job hunting. Although successful job seekers are skilled, they know that they can improve a lot of their key strengths through practice and experience.
You need to view success as something you can achieve through hard work and dedication. In the same way, go above and beyond when proving that you’re well suited for a job even if you have doubts imposter syndrome.
Remain Optimistic
Rejection hurts, but it shouldn’t discourage you or make you lose momentum in your job search efforts. Remain optimistic all the time and view failure as a learning opportunity. Remember to utilize all available resources to improve yourself and continuously reassess yourself.
The Resolutions You Need
These resolutions will go a long way in helping you achieve your set targets if followed to the letter. Their success, however, depends on your zeal and motivation to follow them. Remember to regularly conduct personal reviews, as it is the only way to tell if you are progressing in your career.
