Five Effective Ways of Taking Initiatives on Your Career Growth
Career growth takes deliberate planning and conscious efforts. To reach your potential, and grow a thriving and satisfying career, you need to reserve time for yourself and take the initiative to jumpstart the journey of active learning and self-improving.
Whether you are just graduating from college or at the mid-career stage, you want a clear plan and pathway to your next milestone. It is quite common for employees to expect that a company has a promotion plan in place that automatically recognize your achievements and growth and award you the next promotion. It is often more common to see your expectations fall short even though you’ve put in hard work.
The reality is, if you want to see the fruition of your career growth, you need to take initiatives to plant the seeds and fertilize yourself.
Assess your skills and be honest about your weakness
Take a moment and evaluation your skills and weaknesses at your job. What are the required skills for the next level position that you want? Have you asked for opportunities to demonstrate strong leadership skills and management skills? Write down the 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses you have on paper and work out an improvement plan.
Understand your resources and ask for help
After defining your strength and weakness, the next step is to look for available resources on improvement.
- Start with company resources. Look for the free internal training resources and opportunities. Companies that care about business growth often invest in training and education.
- Be a member of the local knowledge community. These communities often offer career programs and networking events for local professionals.
Set your goal with your manager and track it together
Be clear about your next career goal and share it with your manager. Chances are the managers are buried with their busy schedule and won’t necessarily remember and track your growth for you. Schedule your one-on-one with your manager and bring up your next goal and ask for their expectations.
Ask for feedback
Asking for feedback from peers and managers demonstrates your commitment to growth. Seeking regular feedback not only gets you the opportunity to improve your performances but also help you to develop and strengthen professional relationships with your mentors with open and constructive dialogues.
Build your connections and grow it
- Use your alumni network. LinkedIn is the best place to connect with your alumni and ask for career advice and informational interviews.
- Connect with people in professional conferences and local networking events. Exchange business cards and follow up with them.
Originally published at https://2minutesgrowth.com on January 20, 2021.
