Manage your career – Part 2

Last week, we began to look at measures that you can take to manage your career. We argued that you cannot outsource the management of your career to the HR Team. You need to fully embrace and own your own career. If you take charge of your career, you have a far better chance of excelling than those that do not take control of their career.

Last week, we looked at four of the 10 measures that you can take to manage your career. We considered the need to set your career goals, to define your career path, build passion and to gain drive so that you can accelerate your career growth. Today, we will discuss the remaining six measures:

5. Build your EQ and NQ: While academic performance is greatly influenced by Intelligence Quotient (IQ) which was hard-wired by God before we were born, there are two other sets of competences that you can boost. These are Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ) and Networking Quotient (NQ). Attend to your soft skills that govern how you relate and communicate with others. Build these skills to the best of your ability. Network a lot so that you know many people and they get to know you.
6. Define your role models and mentors: We all need inspiration to do well. Who are your role models for your career? If you are an accountant, which successful accountant do you admire? If you are a marketer, which successful and senior marketing guru do you admire? Get yourself a mentor that can shape you into a successful career person.
7. Control your career journey: Get your hands on your career, steering it on your defined path towards your set goal. Don’t leave it to HR alone to drive. They have dozens, or hundreds or even thousands of staff to manage. Get personalised attention to your career – it is too important to be left to others to manage! This includes how you manage your skills development and training.
8. Tick the boxes: Study the rules of the game for a career in your field and in your company. Maybe to get a certain promotion, there are certain mandatory qualifications, competences and jobs that you will need to have completed before you can be considered. You need to know and complete these requirements. Get yourself to the level of the next job before the opportunity strikes. Understand what it takes to do the next job and make sure you get ready well in time.
9. Get into the frame of what you want to be: You have probably heard this before. That you need to walk, talk and dress like the people at the next level that you admire. You need to get into the frame. Model yourself to be viewed as capable of handling the responsibilities of the next job. Your maturity too must match the expectations of the next job. Also master the key ingredients of successful career people like becoming a complete finisher, owning your actions and following up to the end, embracing a sense of urgency and becoming a problem solver rather than a cause of problems! This way, you will stand out from the crowd and your career with drive past most if not all of your peers.
10. Ask! If you do all the nine measures we have discussed the last two weeks and great opportunities come, you gain yourself the right to pitch for them. If there is an internal opportunity and for some reason you are not being considered, it is okay to ask! There is a popular Biblical verse that says “Ask, and you will be given.” It is true. But only ask when you are ready and prepared. Do your part well in advance and when the moment comes, you earn yourself the right to ask! If there is an amazing external opportunity and you are very ready, ask for it by applying for the job!

Good luck as you begin to gain control over your career to steer it on the path to your desired career goal! This way, you will rise and shine!