Some Career Management Tips!

“We pick our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.” —Omar Khayyam, A Sufi poet and an eleventh century Persian polymath.

After working with over 5,500 clients globally during the past decade as their career coach, I have found common patterns that are inescapable in how people manage their careers and the reason they get into trouble, such as getting laid-off, facing a demotion, or being sidelined or even fired. When I start digging deeper into a client’s particular situation the root cause of their grief is often triggered by something small and innocuous way before the symptoms of their career grief become manifest!

Now that I have collected many such experiences from various clients, who came to me to deal with their particular episode of career grief, I thought it is appropriate to share this partial list for everyone’s benefit.

1. Only YOU are responsible for managing your career. Regardless of how much your superiors tell you that they are looking after your welfare, take charge of your own career and make a plan.
2. Doing a good job is only part of the calculus. I call it a hygiene factor. You must at least meet the minimum threshold to hold on to you job. Doing it better can help, but other factors become more important as you get more responsibilities (read on).
3. Do not just learn to do a good job by mere order taking. Take on some self-directed initiatives that will make an impact in how your company does its thing. When you do identify something worthy to undertake make sure that you have cleared it with your superiors and get their support in its execution.
4. Make a deal with your boss (and a tryst your résumé) to showcase and get rewarded for your accomplishments stemming from your self-directed initiatives. Learn how to verbalize stories to create the right impact in your résumé with such accomplishments. Do it often!
5. Get noticed by recognizing outstanding work of others. Writing a simple email to acknowledge someone’s great work (even superior’s, if done when truly deserved) can give you visibility at many levels, otherwise simply not possible. It is also FREE!
6. Learn how to mentor someone and find yourself a mentor. Also, learn how to maintain and nurture good relationships with everyone, especially the influencers. Do not gossip about other people.
7. Periodically check your HR title to make sure that they have not changed it on you. Recently, a director-level client was surprised to find out that six months before his lay-off his title was changed to Staff Engineer.
8. Keep your résumé current and marketable at all times. Also, keep your LinkedIn Profile up-to-date with your photo, ongoing Recommendations, and searchable write-up that lands you at (or near) the top with the right search string. Keep your LinkedIn network constantly growing, not just with your own immediate associates and colleagues, but also with a diverse group of professionals.
9. Keep yourself visible even during tough times. The normal reaction during such times is to go into hiding from senior management. The more value you create for your company (merely beyond your normal duties), the more likely that you’ll be seen as indispensable.
10.  When you find another job or someone poaches your company to recruit you, avoid taking a counter offer. Decide either to join the new employer or to ignore it.

These are just some of the more commonly encountered tips that I give my clients. Of course, there are others, which I plan to publish at another time! Meanwhile,

Good luck!