How Do You Know You’re Ahead of Your Career Goals?

Career Goals
I'm Right And They Are All Wrong
  • Ali Al-Aradi

    HRD Lecturer & Writer

Competitive professionals know that it’s exhilarating to learn that you’re steps ahead of your peers. For decades, businesses have practiced recruiting entry-level employees in batches to inspire a healthy competition that would drive each individual to improve their skills and contribution to the company. Through competition, hiring managers from a company’s human resource unit are able to pinpoint which candidates have the skills and potential for better job opportunities.

GETTING AHEAD

Your career progress is determined by three factors:

  1. Your progress compared to your peers
  2. Your progress based on what is expected of you
  3. Your progress based on what you expect from yourself

Regularly evaluating career plans is a habit that successful professionals have that lets them make better career decisions. It’s important to know where you want to end up in a few months or years. For many competitive professionals, staying ahead of the game is the key to lock in better career opportunities – but how do you know when you’re ahead of your career goals?

Competitive professionals have a strong grasp on their progress compared to other peers and to what is expected of them. Their drive to improve themselves consistently does not stop knowing that they are ahead of the curve. A common trait among successful professionals is the competitive drive to continue learning and improving their craft to achieve new levels of success.

Knowing that you are ahead of the curve is just as important as consistently evaluating where your career is going. You wouldn’t want to be that person who has stayed and progressed in a career path that he or she never wanted to pursue in the first place. 42% of millennials expect to change jobs at least every 1-3 years, and while it may put millennials in a bad light, it actually makes it advantageous for them as it gives millennials the opportunity to find and discover the career path they want, and for businesses to identify professionals worthy of development for future opportunities.

The founder of Altimeter Group, Charlene Li, recommends professionals to evaluate their careers every 18 months. The idea is to consistently have control over where your career is going, and adapting to the changes that you encounter as you go through your career path. Factors such as starting a family or pursuing a new interest may change your view on your career, which could make you decide to take your career on a different direction. Evaluating your career every year and a half would also reinforce your job satisfaction if you are truly content with your current career path.

LAGGING BEHIND

Professionals may find themselves lagging behind their peers in their career progress, and as you can imagine, it can go both ways; certain individuals might feel demotivated and consider other opportunities, while some may take it as a challenge to improve their craft and overcome their obstacles for success. In any case, the path to success remains the same. Personal development is the key to get back on track.

START TODAY!

As you can discern from this article, the career paths may progress in different ways, but the requirement for success is always learning and development. The rate of your progress could be greatly affected by how much stock you put into the development of your skills and craft. Human resources put great value on highly-skilled individuals who have invested heavily on improving their value to the business. The sooner you start investing in your professional development, the sooner you can get ahead of your career.

Professional skills development should only end when you retire. Put effort into learning and development, and acquire the skills you need to get ahead of your competition. Here are some ways you can get started:

  1. Sign up for seminars and lectures
    Hone your skills by looking for experts in your craft and learn from them. Their experience and skill would immensely help you understand what you need to improve, and how you can improve them. By attending seminars and lectures, you build up on what you already know as a professional by adding the guidance and knowledge of those who came before you.
  2. Attend industry conferences
    Attending conferences could greatly help your understanding of your chosen field. Conferences put together professionals working in the same field to help understand and solve the challenges that they face.
  3. Get certified
    Seek certification on skills and methodologies that your industry could benefit from. Passing certification lets your human resources department know that you have the skills to take on more responsibilities and better job opportunities.

Victory Training Development Institute (vtdi.net) is a training institute in the Kingdom of Bahrain that aims to provide high-quality, career-centric training services to hone skills that are in line with the international standards. To know more about our services, kindly visit our website at www.vtdi.net or call us at 00973 – 7740 4104.

Ali Al-Aradi
HRD Lecturer & Writer

 

 

 

 

0 Comments

Leave a reply

Top