The 6 Steps of Career Effectiveness

Recently we shared a fantastic story from James Mills about how he found his dream job after leaving home.

So as we look forward we thought we would follow that up with something that many of you have been requesting – a few more practical tips and guidance in relation to your career…

Whether you’re just getting started in a career, want to progress rapidly, looking for a career change, or even if you run a business and employ people then the career principles outlined below will apply nonetheless…

We hope you enjoy it and if you have any questions then do get in touch here

1. Get a Clear Idea About Your Current Situation

It’s vital to be real about where you are in your current job situation and be honest with yourself about it. Do you feel like you could be in a job that fulfills your potential and utilises your skills and talents better? Do you really want to jump ship? Perhaps there are opportunities that exist in your current organisation that you’ve not discovered yet? Are you happy with where you’re at?

The key here is to try and be objective about the situation you are in, to look at the good, and the ‘bad’, the pros and the cons. Perhaps even a little list of the pros and cons may help you to really assess where you are…

2. Step Up & Take Charge

Have you ever known someone who has ambled through their current career, just taking what comes their way? Perhaps you’ve felt like that at times. This step reminds me of the old adage ‘act or be acted upon’. Basically if we’re not really deciding where we want to take our own lives and careers, then we are just playing the part of an ‘extra’ in someone else’s dream rather than the leading character in our own.

So ultimately it comes down to truly making a decision that you can and will take action to make a change – even if you don’t know how you’ll do it yet. We’ll get to that…

3.  Know What You Want

As James mentioned in his story, having a clear and compelling picture for your career is absolutely fundamental. You can start by asking questions like…

If I had a magic wand what would my dream career be and why?
What would I do even if I didn’t get paid for it because I just loved it so much?

Just let the questions and answers flow…what would you be doing? Where would you be working? What kinds of people would you be working with? Can you imagine your ideal day at the office? Or maybe there is no office?!! :-)) Really try and immerse yourself in imagining what it would be like.

Beginning to identify and get clear about what we want while unearthing what we need to get there can have amazing results as James’ story showed – where he achieved his dream job with a salary that was only different to the intention he set by £20 a month!!

4. Know How to Get it

Do you have a clear life & career plan for yourself? If you speak to most senior executives, they will tell you they have one and recommend their mentorees to have one too. The old adage is ‘if you fail to plan, you plan to fail…’

Do you know where you want to be by the end of next year? How much money you want to earn? Where you want to work? What you want to do? Do you know the steps to getting there? You’ll be amazed at how many ideas start coming to you as you start answering these questions. Contact us if you would like any help with this.

5.  Know Who to Get It With

As James said in his story, “the greater our ability to build relationships, the greater our ability is to create opportunities for ourselves.” 80-90% of the best job vacancies are not advertised so it is absolutely crucial to build your network of relationships, not only with people who could open up career opportunities, but with people who know what it takes to succeed in a career, like a career mentor or someone in a position that you want to be in. For any guidance on how to do this just drop us a line…

6.  Relate With Who You Know

It’s one thing meeting with the right people but it’s a whole different ball game when it comes to actually building the connection, the trust and understanding so that they want to help you. Opportunities may not come overnight so it’s key to keep in regular contact and find ways to add value to each other. What opportunities or people do you know who you could refer to them? What advice and expertise do you have that you could share with someone? Who do you know who is also looking to progress in their career and how could you help them? As James mentioned in his story, he was also looking to give as well as get and that’s what ultimately led to him finding his ideal job at that time.

Career Progression is Based On Applying These Steps Continually…

Now bear in mind this is a very simple overview of these 6 key steps, there are in fact 10 steps in total and we will explore the other 4 in our next blog.

Success in any endeavour, whether in a career, a business or in your family is a process of continually going through and deepening steps like these over and over again because they apply to any level you are at in your career…

London Eye image courtesy of Paul Tridon @ Flickr

East Midtown skyline, NYC by Dimitry B @ Flickr