12 Ways to Manage Your Career

Find out what you like doing best, and get someone to pay you for doing it.”

Katharine Whitehorn

If you want someone to pay you for what you want to do, then you must manage your career.

Who is responsible for managing your career? You are! During a recent speaking engagement, I was reminded of this fact and a difficult period in my husband’s career.

A year after I’d retired from the military, my husband was laid off by his company. It was a difficult time for our family. I was not working, and the loss of my husband’s income would have a significant impact on our family.

My husband received a severance package from his former company. As a part of his severance package, my husband received services from an outplacement company. During his transition, my husband’s transition coach helped him update his resume, polish his interviews sills, and focus his career options.

Over the course of his sessions, my husband learned several valuable skills, which he still uses today. Shortly after working with the outplacement company, my husband successfully found a new position.

However, he never forgot the lesson’s he learned through the outplacement company. One of the lessons was on managing your career. My husband’s coach gave him a card he keeps in his desk today.

Although the card is about 20 years old, the tips are still relevant. So, what’s on the card? Twelve ways to manage your career!

According to Right Associates, the following 12 ways will help you manage your career:

1. Establish positive work relationships
2. Know your organization’s goals and purpose and help them achieve them
3. Build a network of constructive, successful people and communicate with them frequently
4. Build a genuine relationship based on mutual interest, abilities, and goals with your boss
5. Build a reputation for reliability by completing assignments well and ahead of time
6. Record and communicate your contributions and achievements
7. Recognize the contributions of others
8. Never present a problem without a constructive solution
9. Practice, build on, and plan your career around your greatest strengths
10. Continue to build and maintain your Career Contact Network
11. Continue your personal and professional growth
12. Remember: There is always the next step

According to Mahatma Gandhi, “The future depends on what you do today.” Remember, you are your best career manager!

What are you doing to manage your career?

Your leadership guide,
Kim

Dr. Kim Moore | Your Leadership Guide | kimdmoore.com