You’ve landed a new job and you are feeling great. You should! But it’s not the time to sit back and just let your career evolve. Control it. Maintain career momentum! Here are some strategies you might find helpful!
Continue to study your professional setting
Just as you did in your job search, continue to stay current on what is happening in your industry and profession. Things change, and you need to know how the changes will affect your future career. Some great questions to ask:
- How will my profession fit into the future plans of my new employer?
- How will it fit in the long term in other organizations I might want to pursue in the future?
- What do I need to do to enhance my skills and competencies in the short and long term so I can remain at the top of my game?
- Should I consider working with a professional coach to help me do that?
Redefine your professional goals once in awhile
You may consider this new job the perfect dream job; or maybe it’s just a stepping stone to it. Regardless, redefine where you want your career to go next. Is your goal to head a certain department, business unit or company? Is it to move into a related industry? Go up the ladder in what you’re doing; or do something else?
Assess your mission, skills, interests, values and traits from time to time to determine whether any of them have changed. Just as your professional objective set the tone for your job search, it also sets the tone for managing ongoing career success.
Always have a communications strategy
In your job search, you hopefully gathered and articulated success stories. Don’t stop now. Keep a log or journal of successes, goals met, initiatives taken, problems solved and other positive events. Get in the habit of taking inventory of this valuable information and writing it down on a weekly basis. Keep a paper and/or electronic file of everything you’ve recorded.
And always, always, always, keep your resume up to date. You never know when another opportunity might present itself. It may be within or outside your current place of employment.
Silence is not always golden
My client, Connie had worked her way up to an IT director role in her 30s. She chalked her success off to doing her job, working hard and avoiding what she considered internal politics. When her company relocated its headquarters out of state, Connie was offered and accepted a transfer to a newly acquired subsidiary of the company, located near her home.
At first, Connie felt that she had an excellent working relationship with her new boss, describing her as “mellow; not confrontational or micromanaging.” She concentrated on her first project with her typical focus. Five months into the job, Connie’s new boss approached her with some shocking news. It wasn’t working out. Connie was being terminated.
Connie was still in shock in our coaching session a few days later. “What do you think happened,” I asked. “What kind of feedback were you getting from your boss?” Long pause. “Well, none,” Connie answered.
We discussed how she had assumed that silence meant self-sufficiency. It doesn’t always work that way. Connie had not clarified their expectations. More importantly, she had not asked for regular feedback to make sure she was meeting them. Was she on target? Was there anything else they expected from her? She had no idea. So, of course she was not recalibrating or making any adjustments in the first months on the job.
“This is a hard life lesson,” Connie lamented. “My nature is to keep my nose to the grindstone and that people will just know I did a good job. I won’t ever let this happen again!”
A few months later, Connie found and accepted a new position. One of the first things she did was to meet her new boss to clarify expectations and set up a weekly timetable for discussing her performance. She proactively gave her boss progress reports on a special project she was assigned to. She was especially proud of one comment in her review: “Excellent communication skills”.
Your work and career is always evolving, subject to changes and people dynamics. Making your career what you want it to be doesn’t happen magically. It takes some Ps: Proactively Planning, Proof of Performance, the right Perception of you, and a Positive attitude.
Do you have ideas to share on keeping career momentum? I’d love to hear from you!
Photo: roblisameehan
