Career tips for seasoned professionals
When you start your career, everything is new and exciting. You’re beginning a journey where you will encounter adventure, opportunities, and challenges. As you settle into your professional life, you’ll develop valuable skills and adjust your career goals to suit your emerging interests. You’ll be more experienced, and possess a broader sense of what work means to you. Consider the following suggestions regarding how you can continue to advance your career.
Always keep learning. It’s important to learn new things throughout your career, not just at the beginning! This can involve building upon your foundation of skills and knowledge, or delving into new areas. What you learn can lead to the ability to advance in your current role or discover new opportunities that interest you. There’s a saying that goes, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” It’s so true! Keep learning throughout your career to keep your professional life exciting and engaging.
Forge your own path. In many cases, when you enter a career there is an expected trajectory. It consists of promotions and increasing or new responsibilities. As you move throughout your career, consider what’s expected of you in the role, but also what other opportunities may be best for you. Is it moving up in your current role, making the switch to a new department, or transitioning into a new position at another company? The movement of upwards is not always best. Sometimes a lateral move is the right decision for you, or you may need to move down a level to access a new area (keep in mind that if you do that, you’ll bring transferable skills and experience with you). Don’t just follow the crowd or chase your competition. Carefully evaluate who you are and where you want to go in the professional world, then make the decisions that will help you get there. Sometimes an unexpected detour will lead you to fulfillment beyond your expectations!
Learn from your mistakes. Mistakes are lessons, and they are a good thing! Those lessons will help you identify current challenges and future opportunities. In your career, especially in the beginning, you are going to make mistakes. It’s important to own them, learn from them, and move on. To grow in your career, you will need to take risks of some sort. Work smart and develop a sound base of knowledge. Be aware of what you already know and what may lie ahead. When a mistake happens, learn from it, and determine how it can help you move forward.
A career is truly a journey that consists of both highways and windy back roads. You should move at an appropriate speed and make decisions that work for you, as that will allow you to find both satisfaction in your work and the discovery of new opportunities. To guide you, always keep learning, forge your own path, and learn from your mistakes.
