Useful Tools for Career Development
When it comes to professional growth, every specialist encounters the question of how to drive their career forward. While the path of development may be clear during the early stages of one’s career, it can become particularly challenging for experienced professionals. How does one overcome the glass ceiling to unlock their full professional growth potential?
I’m Peter Lagutin, Head of the Talent Management Department at BP Mobile (AIBY Group). In this article, I will provide you with tools and recommendations on how to develop your opportunities and competencies to advance in your career path. To effectively implement them, analyze them in relation to your current position, identify your areas of growth, and prioritize the aspects you want to focus on.
Competence Areas
Every specialist has a unique set of skills and competencies. By developing them, you can secure your position, increase your chances of promotion, and earn salary advancements and recognition at work. Regardless of your current role, your skills can be grouped into general areas you can work on. Let’s take a look at each of those areas.
1) Professional (hard) skills are specific to individual professions and are essential for performing day-to-day tasks. Typically, specialists prioritize the development of these skills at the start of their career path. However, as one progresses, it becomes crucial to cultivate related competencies that may not be immediately obvious to a specialist.
2) Project expertise and knowledge. While working on a particular product, task, or process, we immerse ourselves in it and gain a deep understanding of it. However, when transitioning to new projects or teams, we find ourselves in a different environment that is shaped by new processes, technologies, interaction patterns, and past experiences. Embracing these changes can serve as an impulse to enhance these competencies, enrich your experience, increase adaptability, and broaden your professional horizons regarding workflow organization.
3) Personal (soft) skills. You may excel as a technical specialist but still not be recognized as a true professional. That’s because your personal qualities, competencies, and skills play an essential role too. They encompass effective communication, time management, task assignment and resolution, questioning, active listening, articulating your viewpoints, assuming responsibility, and maintaining transparency in your work. Developing these skills is essential to reaching new professional heights.
4) Management competencies. Throughout their professional journey, many also progress in terms of their career, advancing to roles such as team lead, manager, or head of a department. This is where management competencies come into play, and they also require training. A manager has to know how to organize teamwork, motivate employees, deliver feedback, oversee processes and workflows, engage the team in problem-solving, and evaluate work. Moreover, the further you advance in your career, the more vital it is to understand the business, company processes, market dynamics, strategy creation, and decision-making.
How to evaluate yourself and define the skills you need to develop
Once you have identified the relevant areas, you need to evaluate your skills to determine the ones you need to work on. Although it may not be an easy task, there are several ways to go about it, so give the following a try and pick the ones that work best for you.
1) Analyze your current workflow. You can discover which areas need improvement by asking yourself the following questions:
What can I do better?
Are there ways I can improve my work?
What processes can be optimized?
What skills and knowledge can I gain to boost the quality of my work?
To be a great professional, you need to always strive for more. Take the time to ask yourself why things work this or that way and evaluate if it’s the most effective approach. I’m sure this practice will help you determine several development opportunities.
2) Find out the business expectations associated with your role and tasks and learn about the company’s plans and strategy. By gaining insight into the organization’s goals and challenges, you can consider how your work can contribute to them.
Here’s a perspective that may help you understand the link between your work and the goals of your company:
business objectives → objectives of your team → your objectives.
This approach allows you to take a broader look at your work and identify the necessary skills that can benefit your company and help it meet its business goals.
3) Request feedback and view criticism as an opportunity for growth. Constructive and detailed feedback from colleagues and your manager is a valuable tool for understanding your strengths and weaknesses. When someone points out a mistake or suggests ways to improve your results, consider it an opportunity to enhance your skills rather than a reprimand for poor performance. Use the feedback to create a plan to improve your skills. Discuss this plan with your manager, who can help you prioritize and make corrections if necessary.
4) Research job vacancies for positions one level higher than yours. Examine the tasks, responsibilities, and requirements outlined for these roles. This way, you can identify new responsibilities and tasks you need to master or improve upon.
5) Analyze the requirements for international certification related to your area of expertise. Numerous professional institutions offer certification for various lines of profession. Typically, these organizations publish lists of requirements or educational programs that you can explore and take note of.
6) Study the market, trends, and new technologies. The world is rapidly evolving, and it is crucial to keep up with the latest advancements. Stay up to date by studying new trends and market developments, as well as exploring ways to implement them in your practice. For example, nowadays, artificial intelligence helps optimize processes in a lot of fields. Why not look for opportunities to use it in your work?
By following these steps, you can effectively evaluate yourself, identify the skills you need to develop, and take proactive steps toward your professional growth. Apart from these practices, I would also like to share several resources that may help you along the way.
What resources can help you expand your knowledge?
These resources are quite well-known, but I still recommend checking out the list — who knows, maybe you’ll discover something new!
1) Theoretical knowledge and additional education. It is important to establish a strong foundation in the form of your specialty’s theory and fundamentals. Usually, you can gain an understanding of them while studying at educational institutions, but you can also find courses or books on the necessary topics. The certification centers I’ve already mentioned can also be beneficial in this regard — while preparing for certification, you can acquire valuable knowledge and enhance your professional value.
Continuously acquiring new knowledge and developing skills is essential for reaching new professional heights. That’s why learning is a lifelong journey. It’s important to set goals in the realm of education too. Stay updated on relevant workshops and courses in your field, read reviews, and choose the ones most suitable for your needs.
2) Professional chats, blogs, portals, and forums. In this age of information overload, it is important to identify a few high-quality sources that provide up-to-date information.
Lifehack: pay attention to the blogs of companies that provide services you use at work. They often share valuable professional information.
3) Networking: communicate and listen. Connect with colleagues from other companies in your field to discuss experiences, processes, and cases, allowing for the exchange of insights and feedback (while respecting any nondisclosure agreements, if applicable). By exploring their experiences, you can try new approaches within your team, workflow, and company. Private conversations can offer valuable and unique insights that may not be found in articles or publications.
4) Attend conferences and meet-ups, and participate in professional community meetings. Immersing yourself in these events is highly valuable. By dedicating time to a specific professional topic, you stimulate idea generation and can provide fresh perspectives (this is verified by my own experience 🙂).
If you can’t attend offline events, consider online alternatives such as webinars, podcasts, professional vlogs, video interviews, and recorded conferences available on platforms like YouTube, and more. The challenge lies in navigating through the ocean of content to find the most relevant and insightful resources.
5) Mentoring and coaching. These tools are highly effective for professional development. If your company offers mentoring or coaching programs, make sure to take advantage of them. Alternatively, you can seek mentors outside your organization. Some mentors may charge fees for their services, but the investment is often worthwhile.
In any case, don’t hesitate to ask questions and seek support from your more experienced colleagues. Additionally, you can ask your manager or senior specialists for recommendations — they often prove to be invaluable.
To sum up, I recommend keeping these important points in mind:
1) Your professional growth is your own responsibility. While a company, manager, or mentor can provide support, it’s up to you to drive your career forward.
2) Gaining new knowledge should lead to practical changes. Just reading a book or attending a conference is insufficient — you need to analyze and implement the best practices to make progress.
Now that you have all the tools you need to succeed, it’s your turn to make use of them! Good luck!
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