When the economy is a little more challenging, it can seem like it is impossible to move forward in your career.  In reality you can move forward in your career whatever the external conditions.  Here’s how.

Focus on Professional and Personal Development

There are always new things to learn or new challenges to face.  Having a real focus on your continuing professional and personal development can really make a difference.  These days there are so many options open to you like low cost digital courses to full day or even full year programmes.

Seek Opportunities To Take On New Projects To Get Extra Experience

Every organisation needs people to lead or be part of organisational projects.  Some might be change related or related to a new acquisition or new service or product.  Often external consultants are brought in and while they can offer value, you can save money for the organisation while broadening your experience.

Get Strategic On Job Search

When you have fewer roles and more people chasing them you have to be selective and strategic.  There is no point wasting valuable time and energy on going for roles that you are highly unlikely to get.

Give Your CV/Resume A Makeover

Most CV’s/Resume’s were written a while ago.  Spend a few hours going through your personal marketing materials and make sure they are selling you and your achievements.

Network More

There is a saying that goes along the lines of it’s not what you know but who you know that matters.  A lot of people find out about a role through the grapevine or through their online and offline networks.  If you are not going along to professional association networking events or being active on LinkedIn Groups you are missing opportunities to build relationships.

The Bottom Line:  You cannot control external factors but you can control how you position yourself for success in your career.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps professionals achieve more career success.  Check out his free audio masterclass at http://www.goalsandachievements.co.uk/careers-main.html

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

Problem 1: You Don’t Know What You Want

Sometimes when I ask people to define what they want or what would be their ideal, they tell me all the things they don’t want. Eventually we get to there but if you want success you need clarity about what you want.

Solution: Write down all the things you want from your career. Don’t just restrict it to the tangibles like salary and benefits. Consider intangibles too like the type of work, type of organisation, type of people, types of challenges to name just a few.

Problem 2: People Are Passive

If you are like many, it is easy to fall into the trap of believing that your boss or HR will take charge of your career for. If so, think again. A passive approach leads to progress in some cases but not optimal results.

Solution: Take control and be proactive with your career. Find out about more senior roles and what it takes to be successful. Read the biographies of successful people.

Problem 3: People Don’t Package Themselves Effectively

Maybe this is a British thing but we are not always the best at positively promoting what we have to offer. This is not just in interviews but also in CV’s, resumes and application forms.

Solution: Make time to discover what your best skills and qualities are and then make sure you promote them effectively.

Problem 4: They Give Up Too Quickly

People tell me that there are too many people chasing each opportunity. Without doubt there are more candidates chasing each opportunity at the moment so you are going to get a few rejections. Reality is too many will give up too quickly.

Solution: Ask for feedback on your applications and incorporate it into how you package yourself in the future.

Problem 5: People Don’t Focus On The Long Term

A career is for the long term. Despite this people often take poor short term decisions.

Solution: Take decisions about roles, applications and job moves with the long term goal or goals in mind.

The Bottom Line: Career success does not happen by chance. You need to take control if you want to get results.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements Ltd helps professionals realise their true career potential and maximise their earnings. Sign up for his free audio masterclass on climbing the career ladder.

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