A path to career advancement could be a steep one to climb, you always have to be sure that you stay ahead of your rivals, work harder, and keep focusing on your goals. Many career experts believe that the perfect time for you to pursue career advancement is when you’ve been employed for quite some time but then you find that your current position doesn’t offer enough challenges for you.
But of course it doesn’t always have to be that way; you don’t always have to wait until you feel like you need some new challenges to pursue career advancement.
(Image Credit: Chris Ford)
You might just need a better salary; maybe you want a better office or more flexible working hours. You can pursue your career advancement anytime as long as you see an opportunity for it, the important thing is that you do some serious planning and preparation, also apply the right strategies so you can achieve that better position at work.
1. Be technology savvy
In this modern era, technology is highly important. Today, technology is literally everywhere, especially in the workplace, so proficiency in technology is one of the many traits companies want for their employees.
You can start with computer, this is obviously an important skill, but chance is all your colleagues also have computer skills. However, usually most people stop learning when they think that their computer skills are just enough to do their job. You can benefit from this mindset by keep improving your skills and exploring opportunities to learn to use new applications and software that can make your job easier. Furthermore, you can also learn to integrate your mobile devices to help you with your work. Proficiency in technology will definitely make you stand out and stay relevant these days.
2. Become the “go-to” person
Being the “go-to” person in a particular niche is definitely making you more visible. However, this is often not a very easy thing to do because chance is there are many more people in your workplace that share the same skills with you. The key is to make yourself more reliable than others and most importantly always available, or at least most of the time. Not only for your superiors but also for your colleagues that need help.
3. Explore more ways to master your key skill
It requires a lot of hard work, dedication, money, and you also need to sacrifice your free time, but higher education always provides great help for career advancement. Not only higher formal education, but you can also get certification in special areas, preferably that have relevance with your work. If you’re a developer, you need to focus on a specific language to specialize in so you can become an expert and linchpin in that area within your company.
If you see that most of your colleagues have been sticking in Python, explore the most common Python programming mistakes and how you could avoid those. You may also look into other easy to learn yet difficult to master programming languages and become the expert in that area.
Make sure your managers know about it so they will see you as an individual who’s eager to learn and advance.
4. Align your interests with company’s needs
This may not seem like a magical advice, but the truth is sometimes all you need is simply to talk with your boss about a possibility of career advancement by letting them know of your other skills that may be relevant to the company. Even though there is no opportunity yet, this simple conversation often will make your boss start noticing you, so if finally there is an available position you will be considered to fill it up.
5. Be open to exploring other opportunities
At any point, when you feel that there’s no opportunity to grow within your company after all your efforts to improve your skills, showing your reliability and offering suggestions on how you could best help, don’t close your door to the idea of explore beyond your current shores. When preparing to look for other opportunities, list down your professional goals and pick a company that have roles that could potentially help you achieve those. Learn more about the company’s culture, read reviews of their hiring process so you could best prepare for it.
By showing your dedication in your craft, ways for career advancement will show as you go and keep improving your skills.
