What does ‘investing in your career’ actually mean? It means you have to spend some time and money on your career. It means taking control of your career and being accountable for your own success. Here are some good examples of where you could make more of an investment career-wise:
1. Build relationships. Create your own circle of influence; find a mentor. Make time to make connections, pay attention to, and nurture meaningful relationships.
2. Do the career management thing: make a plan, devise some goals. Take time to review your objectives and challenge your own commitment levels daily.
3. Recognise what you are good at and get better at it. Spend time observing yourself and your colleagues in meetings or just day to day and notice what you uniquely bring. Then invest some time and money getting better at it.
4. Be prepared to take a step backwards. It may be that to move forward long term you need to forego some short term gratification. A lower salary now could mean great things in the future. 5. Get a qualification/attend a course/learn something new.
6. Build your online brand. Create a webpage to showcase your work or simply keep your social networking profiles updated and constantly be on the lookout for anything that could be perceived as negative.
7. Raise your professional profile. Spend time on a committee or board or take on a challenging new project. Find ways to gain valuable, marketable experience.
8. Ask for feedback. And learn from it.
9. Take a risk. If you don’t really have to think about risk it probably isn’t the life changing or breakout move you were looking for.
10. Make time for those people or things that balance you: your family, your friends, your hobbies. They will offer you perspective, different experiences and a much needed escape from the world of work. If you think about it, you probably invest more time and money in your choice of holiday than you do in your career. Given that you spend two-thirds of your waking life at work and your career goes a long way to determining your quality of life, it may be worth reassessing your investment portfolio.