I speak to a lot of accountants and professionals about their career. Many of them are keen to move forward in their career. When I probe a bit there is often a gap between desire, decision and action.
When I started out in accountancy in the early 80’s time and experience usually got you to a senior level. Today that’s no longer the case.
If you are going to move forward and achieve in your career, you have to be contributing. The best way of making sure you are is by focusing on improvement.
This might be improving a process that makes things easier for others in the organisation.
It could be educating others outside of your professional field. For example you could be training non finance managers on the basic of accounting or risk management.
You might be focusing on improving your non technical skills so that you can work even better with others across the organisation.
What’s going to make the difference is very personal to you. No matter what it is, being focused on improvement personally or for the benefit of others will make an impact on your career results in my experience.
Duncan Brodie helps accountants and professionals achieve more career success. Learn more here.
Since 2006 I’ve worked with in excess of 8,000 accountants and professionals in workshops, seminars and one to one helping them land their next jobs and become better leaders, presenters and business partners. Before that I spent 25 years in accountancy climbing the career ladder from Payments Clerk to FD. I’m a CIMA Fellow, Certified Professional Coach and Team Coach Facilitator.