Archive for the ‘Career’ Category

If you are a manager, aspiring manager, leader or aspiring leader, I am guessing that you are always on the lookout for your next career progression opportunity.

On the other hand, you might find that you are not getting promoted to the next level even though you think you are ready.

So what might be stopping you?

You are applying for the wrong roles
• It is tempting when you are ready to progress to the next level to apply randomly for posts. A much better strategy is to be highly targeted with your applications.

You are not showing the relevance of your experience to the job

• Employers are seeking evidence as to how your experience fits the role. Try to use examples to illustrate this.

You are not highlighting achievements

• Too often I see CVs that talk a lot about the job and very little about achievements. Focus on highlighting your achievements.

You don’t sell yourself

• Most of us don’t like to blow our own trumpet, especially us folks in the UK. At the same time, if you don’t sell what you have to offer, how can you ever expect to land the job?

You don’t prepare enough

• Having interviewed hundreds of people over the years, what surprised me most was that people are so ill prepared. If you are not willing to invest a sizeable block of time in preparing for your next role, it may be that you just don’t want it enough.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

If you are reading this blog post, the chances are you are ambitious and want to progress your career. So what might be stopping you from progressing your career?

Lack of clarity
• Are you really crystal clear on your next role? Do you really know the type of industry or geographical location you want to work in? Getting clarity about these key questions is vital to you progressing your career.

Lack of strategy

• You need to approach your job search systematically rather than just randomly. Make really clear choices about the types of roles you want to pursue, how you are going to find them or how you will create the opportunities you are seeking.

Out of date skills

• The pace of change is extremely fast these days in organisations so you need to make sure that your skills reflect the market needs. Make a point of taking stock of your skills and what needs developing.

Not selling yourself

• Whether you like it or not, you have to sell what you offer in job applications and in interviews. Start keeping track of your achievements and results so that you can sell these effectively. Don’t be afraid to share your successes.

I wonder what else you would add to the list? Why not leave a comment with your suggestions?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

When it comes to career, you obviously want to try and get as much clarity as possible about where you are heading.

At the same time, before you can start to make progress, you need to be clear about where you are starting from.

So how can you find out where you are starting from?

1. Review your career to date.
2. Identify what experience you have got so far and what’s missing.
3. Look at the feedback that you have received from appraisals or performance review meetings.
4. Think about the type of work that you are usually seen as the go to person for. This is an indication of an area of real strength.
5. Ask for some feedback from those you work with now or have worked with in the past.
6. Do some form of self-assessment.

The Bottom Line

If you are going to get choices in your career, you need to get clear on the start point.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

Working as an accountant in major organisations for over 25 before setting up my own business in 2006, what I consistently noticed is that it was not the most technically gifted people who got to the more senior level posts.

I know that even though I climbed the career ladder from a Payments Clerk to Finance Director, I was not the most technically gifted accountant.

On the other hand I was always interested in the organisations I worked in, was able to build relationships and take on challenges. Contrary to many people I found having the opportunity to manage and lead people and be involved in key projects really rewarding.

Of course like most people I made mistakes and tried to learn from them.

So I am wondering what other people find it takes for people to break through into senior management?

Would love to hear your views and insights, so why not go ahead and leave a comment.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants make the breakthrough from highly regarded technical professionals to highly effective managers and leaders. To sign up for his Weekly Leadership and Management Tips click here

Many professional people get qualified in their chosen field, ready to fulfil their promise, and somehow end up getting stuck.

While there might be no blueprint that will provide you with the sure-fire way to achieve career success, there are some things you can do to boost your chances in my experience.

Get a breadth of experience

While it might be tempting to be known as the expert in something, the truth is that, if you want to get to a more senior level, you need to get a breadth of experience. This can be achieved in a number of ways:

• Taking a secondment
• Running a project
• Moving between sectors
• Covering a maternity leave.

Don’t become too comfortable

We all like to enjoy our job but in every post the first 18 to 24 months are in my experience the most fruitful in terms of personal growth. Be alert to when you start to plateau and do something to get yourself a new challenge.

Make time for continuing professional development

This is a big one and yet so often I come across people who see getting professionally qualified as the end of the journey. In reality, it is just the start. Employers look for people to have invested in their personal development. If you are serious about your career, so will they.

Get a mentor

The fastest way to progress is to find mentors who have achieved what you want to achieve and learn from them. Despite what most of us think, successful people love to help others achieve success.

In truth, many want to achieve career success but few make it a reality. What tips would you add to the list to help others achieve career success?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

One of the most common reasons why people don’t invest in developing themselves is a lack of budget. Yet in truth there are many low cost ways to develop yourself that cost little or nothing, such as:

1. Borrowing a book from the library, reading it and implementing one or two ideas.
2. Signing up for free newsletters.
3. Attending a professional association CPD event.
4. Shadowing someone senior in the organisation.
5. Taking on responsibility for a project.

So what else would you add to the list? Why not leave a comment with your ideas?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

If you are reading this post, I am guessing that progressing your career might be important to you. So what barriers might be stopping you from moving to the next level?

1. You are great at working alone on activities but struggle at managing.
2. You have not kept your skills up to date.
3. You don’t believe in yourself and what you have to offer.
4. You are more afraid of failing than trying to succeed.
5. You are not clear about what you want from your next role.
6. You don’t sell yourself effectively in your resume or CV.
7. You struggle to sell yourself at interviews.
8. You understate your achievements.
9. You won’t ask for help to get to the next level.
10. You are not willing to invest in acquiring the skills, training or mentoring to make it to the next level.

Truth is every step in your career brings with it new challenges. So what do you need to focus on to get to the next level?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

If you are a professional, continuing professional development is not just desirable but an essential part of your membership.  After all would you like to have an out of date surgeon perform your operation, gas fitter install your central heating or mechanic service your car? 

 

When people think of CPD they often get stuck in the old way of thinking of attending a course. Truth is there are huge range of options which are low or no cost, such as:

 

1. Subscribing to podcasts
2. Signing up for newsletter updates
3. Subscribing to a professional journal
4. Listening to audio CD programmes
5. Attending teleseminars
6. Participating in webinars
7. Signing up for free or low cost e-courses
8. Attending professional association local events
9. Reading books which you buy or borrow from the library
10. Taking on additional responsibilities at work
11. Shadowing a more senior member of the organisation
12. Taking a secondment

 

At the end of the day, even if you have little or no budget available there are still many CPD opportunities available to you.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps highly rated professionals become great leaders and managers.  For more information click here 

Set a few key goals

 

Like to do lists we are all tempted to come up with a long list of goals.  But remember that achieving a goal requires investment of time, energy, effort and maybe money.  In a 52 week year you can only achieve so much, so choose wisely when it comes to goals.

 

List all of the things you need to do to achieve your goals

 

The goal is the outcome you want, for example, get promoted, complete a professional qualification, deliver a major business project to time and budget to name just a few. 

 

Achievement of the goal or outcome requires you to do many things.  Let’s illustrate this by looking at getting promoted.  You might need to:

 

 

• Do some form assessment of your strengths and weaknesses
• Start searching for opportunities
• Update your CV
• Get some feedback
• Work on a personal development plan
• Take some training

 

As you can see the list can become very large very quickly hence the suggestion that you focus on a few key goals.

 

Measure your progress regularly

 

Ever heard the phrase what gets measured gets done?  When you start actively tracking progress you will be amazed at the progress you make.

 

Set up some accountability

 

There is something really powerful about having to report back on your progress to someone else.  Some view it as a negative thing but it definitely does not need to be.  Simply let someone know what you plan to do and get them to ask you for a regular update in the progress you are making.

 

 

 

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers.  For more information click here

Often when I am contacting by someone to work with me on a one to one basis, they say to me that they are really well rated professionally but are really finding it a struggle to progress their career.

Sadly this is all too common.  When I was working in Finance Departments in a range of organisations I had the opportunity to work with people who have since gone on to very senior level roles.  However, there were far more who quite simply got stuck at a very junior or middle management level.

So why do professional people who are clearly bright and capable find it a struggle to progress their careers?

1. They don’t work on the wider skill set that is essential at the more senior levels.  The reality is that at the more senior levels everyone being interviewed can do the technical part of the job.  It is the ability to be part of a team and contribute outside of your area of expertise that makes the difference.
2. They don’t have a plan that sets out what they want to achieve and the skills, experience and attributes that are necessary to achieve what they want.
3. They don’t evaluate opportunities as effectively as they could so end up taking jobs that offer short term benefits like salary.
4. They don’t invest sufficiently in their CPD even though the professional bodies of which they are members offer a range of CPD events most of which are low or no cost.
5. They fail to understand the fundamental differences about leading.  I once heard someone say that leadership is all about influence, impact and human interaction which in my book describes it in a nutshell.

So if you want to progress your career in 2010, take some time to stand back and get clear on what you want to achieve and put some plans in place to move forward.  You might also want to check out my Career Accelerator Workbook

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers so that they realise their real professional potential.