Career Quiz

If You Want to Advance:

First, you need to decide what you want. What is your desired outcome? Are you happy or unhappy in your job? What job do you want next? What do you want your ultimate job to be? What would your ideal job be like? What would it NOT be like? Start writing down some ideas.

You will need to look at your current job as a step in your overall career and start setting some specific goals to get there.

You will need to proactively make your intentions clear with your manager, get feedback about how you are perceived, and start to understand the gaps you will need to fill to qualify for your next job.

If you are very busy and overwhelmed, you will need to find a way to "make room" to do work over and above your current job to get the next level of experiences.

You will also need to think about how you can get known for being a leader vs. being someone mostly known for doing a good job.

Start to think about building your personal network and get a mentor.

You are a high performer and doing well at your current job. You feel ready for a bigger job, but may find yourself without the recognition or opportunities for advancement you think you deserve.

If You Want to Advance:

You will need to start by getting your desired job into clear focus, and then learning as much as possible about it. What is it really like to have that job? What are the biggest issues faced? How do people in that job define success? What are the most important decisions they have to make?

Identify people who are in those jobs. Interview them about what they do. Do additional reading and research about what creates success in that type of job.

Understand the gaps you have, and create a target experience list that you will need to go after the job you desire. Be on the lookout to volunteer for projects or important work that isn't getting done, which will provide you the specific experiences on your list.

You will need to develop your Personal Leadership Strategy and be able to talk about and demonstrate how you lead people vs. manage their work.

You will need to truly master delegation, and manage your time, energy, and workload. You need to be seen as doing your current job with ease and grace before you are seen as ready for a bigger one.

It will be very important to regularly find ways to create positive visibility for your work and your team vs. expecting that your hard work will be fully recognized and appreciated on its own merits.

You will also need to start building personal relationships with mentors who you can learn from and who can support you to achieve your ambitions.

You have been building your career equity doing several things right, but could increase your relevance and effectiveness, and get access to bigger opportunities if you do even more things on purpose.

If You Want to Advance:

At this point in your career you are probably looking for a bigger gain in job scope, relevance, or compensation.

The focus here is to do some critical things on purpose.

You need to broadly consider who all of your stakeholders and influencers are, and create a systematic and actionable plan to communicate specific and relevant information with them on a regular basis.

You need to begin to develop your "Personal Brand", and understand how to consistently present yourself and actively manage what you are known for.

You will need to make a bigger effort to build out your personal network, broaden your point of view and make more connections external to your current organization.

You also need to recruit mentors who can help you learn things, who can give you access to even bigger networks of support, and who will recommend you as bigger positions become available.

Focus on obtaining the specific experiences you will need to lead at the level of your desired job. And remember this is a different set of requirements than getting experience in the content that the job will manage, or leading at the level below.

You will need to focus on the development your team to take on more of the workload, and free yourself up to make more strategic contributions.

You are being very purposeful in creating momentum for your career. You are building the necessary support to go after bigger opportunities successfully, but can get even bigger gains by working more broadly and leading through others.

If You Want to Advance:

Here are some ideas you can consider in addition to continuing to deliver exceptional results and maintaining the network of support that you have built so far.

Focus on developing your Personal Leadership strategy so you are creating a specific culture and environment for your organization to thrive.

Get very clear about who you really are. What you really care about, your strengths, your values, and your purposes. Build this into your personal brand and use it put yourself in your power alley as much of the time as possible.

Use your personal brand to define your work, your contribution, and your relationships, and your communications. Use it to be clear and purposeful about how you present yourself and to manage what you are known for.

Build your team to deliver really well, so you can get yourself out of the day to day operations. Instead spend your time and energy looking outside your organization for opportunities to grow revenue, reduce costs, and partner strategically.

Make sure you have a strategy for career development for your organization and are building bench strength, and a succession plan. Make your top performers famous. You can't move up if no one can step up.

Use your network and mentors to get access to bigger and broader reaching projects with high visibility, and own and execute on ones that best serve your desired outcome.

Become a spokesperson for your business and become known as an expert by the media and analyst communities for your industry. Become known as a great communicator internally as well.

Find out how getting on "The List" of people who are considered or the top jobs works in your environment and get yourself on it.

So, now what?

Want more?

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