Some go on to achieve great success but others, particularly those from professional backgrounds, often struggle. So what are some of the barriers that stop people getting ahead in their career?

1. Failing to get clear about what they want to achieve short term and long term. Being clear about where you are going helps you make informed choices.
2. Being unwilling to put in the effort. In many professions there is a level you cannot get beyond without a professional qualification. I am not saying this is fair but it is reality. We all know that getting any type of professional qualification requires effort.
3. Being a minimalist. By that I mean never going beyond the boundaries of what they are paid to do.
4. Lack of confidence. It amazes me when I come across highly competent people who are lacking self-confidence. Don’t confuse confidence with never worrying. Confidence is what pushes you forward even when there are some big obstacles.
5. Failing to get noticed by the decision makers or those who have the ear or can influence the decision makers.
6. Underselling what you have to offer. It is easy to think that all the organisation is interested in is the people who sell or are in the creative functions. Every organisation needs good people in every discipline so make sure you sell what you have to offer.
7. Never learning how to manage and in some cases resisting any suggestion to learn the oddly named softer skills.
8. Failing to continuously develop yourself and finding that what you thought were assets are actually obsolete skills.
9. Making career moves that look great in the short term but are really bad news long term.
10. Never mastering how to be successful in interviews and handle the pressure of the interview situation.

The Bottom Line: We all start with the same opportunity and to a large extent influence how far we go.

If you have found this blog post valuable I invite you to check out my audio masterclass on climbing the career ladder.

As an accountant by profession and through working exclusively with professional people at Goals and Achievements, I see a lot of people who are fantastic within their area of professional expertise but really struggle to get ahead in their career.

It would be easy to say that it is simply a case of mastering the interview process and all will be different. The reality, from working with clients and having personally climbed the career ladder from £30 a week Payments Clerk to Finance Director of a major organisation, is very different.

So here is my list of what I see as key to moving forward in your career and achieving the results and success you desire:

Ability To Manage A Team

Many professional people get promoted on the basis of their technical competence. They then find themselves managing a team, projects, processes and systems and often find it a struggle. It is easy to dismiss this as the soft and fluffy stuff but in my experience being able to manage is not optional.

Ability To Lead

By that I mean the ability to drive things forward, get buy-in and support and contribute beyond your area of direct expertise.

Ability To Build Relationships

These days it is key to build relationships within your own area, across the wider organisation and even with people in client or partner organisations.

Ability To Make The Complex Simple

This is essentially about providing expert advice in plain and simple ways to the lay person.

Strong Communication Skills

Successful professional people can get their message across easily verbally and in writing. They also are great listeners too.

Ability To Work With People At All Levels

You need to be able to get your message across and create relationships with people at all levels across the organisation.

Be Able To Run and Lead Projects

These might be related to a new system implementation or integrating an acquisition.

Able To Influence

Quite often that means being able to adapt their style to fit the person or the situation they are dealing with.

Create and Deliver Change

Challenging economic times necessitates innovation from everyone, including professional people.

Build And Maintain A Network

A network is not just a source of job opportunities but a group you can call on for advice and support or simply to bounce ideas off.

Selling Skills

Vitally important if you are working in a professional services firm that makes its money selling services to clients.

IT Skills

How to utilise IT to facilitate efficiency, effectiveness and cost reduction.

Market Yourself

In particular, create a CV or résumé that gets you noticed.

Interview Skills

Whether people like it or not, a lot of the decision about recruiting comes down to how well people perform in interviews.

A Good Understanding Of Business

You don’t need to be an expert in every area of business, but you do need to have a good understanding of different areas of the business and the dependencies.

Confidence And Self-Belief

This is what will ultimately drive you forward even when the going gets tough.

The Bottom Line: Being highly competent in your professional field is no longer a guarantee of long term success in your career.

To learn more about getting ahead in your career check out my audio masterclass at www.goalsandachievements.co.uk

In this short video I am sharing 10 tips designed to help you to maintain some balance as you progress your career.

If you have additional tips of your own, please add a comment.

And if you enjoyed the presentation I invite you to sign up for my free audio masterclass

Set aside time to take stock

You probably have done lots of things in your career but, if you are like most of us, it is all too easy to lose sight of everything you have done or achieved. Set aside a couple of hours to list all of the things you have done and achieved. You might just surprise yourself at what you uncover.

Ask yourself what’s stopping you

You probably have been applying for, and maybe even been interviewed for, more senior positions but not landing the role at the next level. Think about some of the feedback that you are getting. Is there a common theme or themes emerging? Once you know this, you can take action to do something about it.

Give your CV or résumé a makeover

Take out your CV or résumé and look at it as if you were a recruiter. In the 30 second scan, what does it say about you and is it saying what you want it to? In other words, is it selling what you have to offer?

Hire A Coach or Mentor

It may not be the first thing that comes into your head but often even a short period with a coach or mentor can accelerate your move forward. The one to one personal support can make the difference.

At the end of the day, there could be many things that are keeping you stuck. The trick is to identify these and take action to do something to address them.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps professionals to achieve success, realize their professional potential and maximise their earnings. You can sign up for his free audio masterclass here

Block 2

Block 3

Block 4

Block 5

What else would you add to the list of 5?

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

Habit 2

Habit 3

Habit 4

Habit 5

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

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

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

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.