Review Your Career Tactics
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As we’ve mentioned before, our research shows that the best chance you have to move your career forward is to find a role that plays to your strengths. The good news is that the same is true of the tactics you use to drive your career. There are hundreds of strategies and tactics that you can use, but the focus of today’s tip is on finding the ones you enjoy!
A great example is that while many people enjoy the kind of networking that involves meeting new people and making small talk, most goal-oriented introverts hate doing this! Yet goal-oriented people are happy to volunteer to work on a task with people from different parts of the organisation, in order to achieve an objective. And while doing this they can build excellent relationships that stand the test of time and open up new career opportunities. Do you need to talk to new people ABOUT something tangible? How might you spot opportunities to get involved in this kind of work?
Be aware that if you decide that you are going to do something because you feel you “should” do it – you probably won’t get around to it. Whereas if you decide try something because you think you will enjoy doing it – you will make it happen! So it’s important that you identify the right tactics for you to use to progress your career.
With that in mind, here are three great places to start –
Take 10 minutes to think about find out what works for you – and build on what has worked before. And most importantly – consider spending time on building a reputation and a wide set of good relationships as a legitimate use of your work time – not a ‘nice to do if things are slack’; remember that this kind of action also increases your credibility, influence and ability to get jobs done!
A great example is that while many people enjoy the kind of networking that involves meeting new people and making small talk, most goal-oriented introverts hate doing this! Yet goal-oriented people are happy to volunteer to work on a task with people from different parts of the organisation, in order to achieve an objective. And while doing this they can build excellent relationships that stand the test of time and open up new career opportunities. Do you need to talk to new people ABOUT something tangible? How might you spot opportunities to get involved in this kind of work?
Be aware that if you decide that you are going to do something because you feel you “should” do it – you probably won’t get around to it. Whereas if you decide try something because you think you will enjoy doing it – you will make it happen! So it’s important that you identify the right tactics for you to use to progress your career.
With that in mind, here are three great places to start –
- What has worked for you before? If you think about challenges you found and opportunities that you seized – how did they come about? What did you do that created these opportunities? Was it talking to people you have great relationships with, or striking up conversations with people you don’t yet know, or connecting to your HR team – or something else? If you’ve already done it and it’s worked – keep doing it!
- Find your own approach to key strategies. We know from our research some of the most important strategies that help you to attract career opportunities. Find your own approach to each of them. Think about HOW you might tackle the following:
- How do you bring people into your network? How do you like to bond with new people, and establish a mutually helpful relationship?
- What’s an enjoyable way for you to keep in touch with people you already know, so that they don’t slide out of your network?
- What’s your preferred way of sharing good news about your achievements? What would you enjoy doing, which could make you visible, and build your reputation?
- What situations make it easy to ask others for help, when you are starting to think about attracting a new job opportunity? What works for you, in terms of letting people know what you want, and aspire to?
- What are you prepared to do to reduce the risk of letting you have a go at a role that you covet?
- Be true to your social self. Career tactics don’t always have to be boring – for example, people laugh when we say a great career tactic is just pure, undirected socialising – but the evidence is that socialising can create unexpected opportunities! If you are a social creature and strongly extroverted, this is probably going to be a great career tactic for you. On the other hand, if you don’t enjoy meeting and socialising, perhaps using social media, or sharing and publishing articles might be a better fit for you? Think about your personality preferences and find things that suit the person you are.
Take 10 minutes to think about find out what works for you – and build on what has worked before. And most importantly – consider spending time on building a reputation and a wide set of good relationships as a legitimate use of your work time – not a ‘nice to do if things are slack’; remember that this kind of action also increases your credibility, influence and ability to get jobs done!