By adding career maintenance activities to your routine, you will become more effective and minimize the risks associated with career repair. Having coached and placed 100’s of middle to senior-level people in multinational companies over 20 years, I have witnessed patterns of success and failure.
Career maintenance success does not happen on its own. It must be taught and learned. On average, people within OECD countries go through about 17 years of education. This is based on the number of people between the ages of 5 and 39 currently in school. Yet, there are few courses on how to manage a career effectively.
For example, to learn, one must be humble and accept that there could be a better way. I have encountered some people who are not teachable or coachable. These people usually have a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset.
Also, according to author Carol Dweck, “In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. Alternatively, “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. Brains and talent are just the starting point.
I agree that ”basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work.” Having earned a degree in music, I was trained to be a professional singer and conductor. Through further hard work, I developed the skills to manage a sizable athletic footwear production facility of 5,000 employees for Reebok and then become the Head of Footwear Product Development for Adidas. Both companies are global footwear giants. This led me to establish a management consulting firm in a foreign land serving Fortune 100 clients and others over 20 years.
Being sensitive and flexible to changes in the new hybrid workplace is another requirement for career maintenance. Flexibility at work is the new norm. There is no one size fits all. Some organizations are focusing on corporate cultural change, others on flexible seating, and others hone their sights on remote work.
LinkedIn found that 87% of people would prefer to stay remote at least half of the time in a recent survey. 81% of executives are planning to update their workplace policies to offer greater flexibility. It’s also interesting to note is that from March 2020 to August 2021, LinkedIn has tracked an 8.5x increase in the number of remote jobs posted on its platform.
According to a new survey from the consulting and staffing agency Robert Half, 41% of managers in the US are allowing staff to set their own hours. This trend of increased remote jobs reminds us of another critical task in career maintenance, employability skills.
I believe the development of employability skills will improve your value and increase your chances of life-long employment and personal fulfillment. While the term employability skills have been around for years, it is more relevant today than ever before.
There was not a position where I knew what I was doing when I started the job in my career. In every case, I had to develop new skills and gain more knowledge and education to succeed.
In addition to technical knowledge and subject knowledge, employers often outline specific skill sets required for a given position. Relying on University degrees alone is not sufficient, nor adequate career maintenance now or in the future. That’s risky business.
Further research from LinkedIn supports my theory that more companies need to communicate the skill sets required for open positions. They report seeing over the past two years a 16% increase in job postings listing skills as opposed to education or experience requirements.
I believe on average most people achieve more than they get credit for. Most people don’t want to brag about themselves or their successes. So, they fail to communicate these important events to those who need to read, hear or learn of these achievements. This could be a fatal mistake.
The number one thing that you can start doing today for your career management is to start writing a daily journal. The problem that most people have with doing this is, they say, “I don’t know what to write.” Let me help you get started.
Start your daily journal by answering the same 3 to 4 questions every day. That is what you will write about. If you need a writing prompt to get you started, I suggest that you start with these sentences.
Examples:
1) What was the most important thing that I accomplished today?
2) Please describe something that you read today that was meaningful to you and why.
3) Then, describe what the number one task is that you plan to accomplish tomorrow.
It is proven that career maintenance is more effective and less expensive than having to repair your career. We believe that our personal development coaching programs help individuals reach their full potential in life and work.
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