There may come a day when you feel in your job that you need to improve and you should go beyond your current position and reach higher levels. Career development is a category for which you must have a plan. There are different types of career advancement that can vary from promotion in the company to more responsibility in your current role. Regardless of what you are trying to achieve, career advancement is almost impossible without a plan, and it is planning that will bring you closer to your goal. Creating a new career road map shows you a path that leads to career advancement. To help make this journey easier, we’ll tell you what you need to do to advance your career.
Define success for yourself
Each person has a specific definition of success. For some people, it may be about exploring employment opportunities in the job market, landing a job and taking on a desirable executive role, and for others, success can be finding a job that allows them to spend more time with their family. There is no right or wrong concept to define success and the concept of success looks different for everyone. The important thing is that you can define it for yourself.
Think about what is important to you now in your current career and what you want your career to look like in the future. What you strive for now may be different than what you want in five or ten years. Foresight or long-term thinking helps you to have a personal definition of success.
Once you’ve defined success, it’s time to make it happen. Create a chart that shows where you currently stand in your current job and what you expect of yourself in the next five and ten years. In this five-year chart, go five years ahead and determine what you would like to achieve in each five years. Keep this document handy, as this chart is the beginning of your career road map.
Set goals and timelines
Having specific goals and a timeline for achieving them are two key parts of career success and advancement. Without a timeline, goals are much harder to achieve, and without goals, a timeline is just a schedule. Using them together is the way to success. Goal setting gives you clues to work towards and a timeline keeps you accountable and on track.
Refer to your career roadmap and take a look at your plans for years one to five. These are your biggest long-term goals. To achieve these big goals, you need to break them down into smaller, more manageable short-term goals. Consider the steps you need to take to get to the next position in your current job. What skills will you need for career advancement? Who in your network can help you improve? Can you reach your goal in your current company?
Really take the time to analyze and challenge your critical thinking about this topic. There’s no limit to the number of short-term goals you can create, but a general rule of thumb is that more is better than less. Once you’ve identified your long-term and short-term goals, it’s time to add them to your career roadmap. The more detailed your plan is, the easier it will be for you to stay on track to achieve all of your goals. Of course, don’t forget that if you change jobs, one of your goals to achieve success should be to write a professional resume. Without this, you have almost missed part of the way and you will certainly not achieve career advancement.
Seek feedback
Feedback is a way to measure your progress and ensure you are on track to achieve your goals. If your work is reviewed only twice a year, schedule a review session with your manager in between reviews. Don’t limit feedback to just your superiors. You should also seek feedback from your colleagues and friends, as these people have a different perspective than your superiors and can help you improve.
Ask your peers to assess your strengths and weaknesses or give you specific feedback from when you worked together. If you are in a management role, ask your employees to critique you as well. The more diverse your sources of feedback, the more you will learn from them.
Talk to your manager
There are usually more opportunities for advancement than you think. Talk to your manager and see what career opportunities are available at the company. Share your goals with him and see how he can help you achieve them. By talking to your manager and letting them know your aspirations, you can tell them more about your abilities, skills and interests for advancement. If the manager is with you, he will help you take the right steps on the way to your goals and guide you.
Use your network
The only way to progress in your career, no matter what your goal is, is with the help and support of others. Refer to the network of people around you for each step of the process. As you think about your definition of success, talk to your mentor or a trusted advisor. Once you’ve set your long-term goals, talk to your manager to see what opportunities are there for you to progress in the workplace. Once you’ve determined what you want to do next, seek out people who are currently in that role and ask them about it. The more information you get, the more complete your plan will be and the clearer what you need to do.
Collectively, these steps will help you create your career roadmap, which will ultimately become your action plan and guide to career advancement. Remember that this app can be updated over time and you may need to change some things along the way. A career path is not a straight line from point A to point B, so don’t feel like you have to follow a certain path to get there.
