Will the New Year bring you a New Job?

2013

Another chance to start anew. What are your professional goals this year?

 

Get a promotion? Earn a raise or bonus? Start working on your Masters? Finish writing a book? Start a new job?

 

Whatever the goal, it is important to meet the head on and commit to making it happen!

 

Step 1: Write the goal down. Be specific.

Step 2: Determine what resources you need to accomplish the goal.

Step 3: Determine what roadblocks you may have along the way and how to address them.

Step 4: Divide your goal up in to a series of benchmarks.

Step 5: Determine a reasonable timeline to complete each benchmark and reach your final goal.

 

Have a great year!

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IF YOU ARE ABOUT TO QUIT. OR GET FIRED. KNOW THIS BEFORE YOU LEAVE YOUR JOB.

 Are you taking the right career steps towards your next job?

Whether you are leaving your job on your terms or not, you will feel better doing so with a resume that is ready to go. Updating your resume frequently allows you to keep an accurate accounting of your accomplishments. The benefits of the self assessment that a resume forces you to complete not only helps you get a new job, you become aware of your professional development pace. What have you accomplished in the past 6 months? Is it resume worthy? If not, you better make sure your next six months are stellar or start looking for a new job.

“If you’re not practicing, somebody else is, somewhere, and he’ll be ready to take your job.”

-Brooks Robinson, American professional baseball player, b. 1937

Gather your I ROCK proof.

A resume listing your job description in bullet point form will put a hiring manager to sleep. What DOES impress interviewers is a description of how much you rocked in your last position(s). Start compiling a BRAG BOOK. It is so much easier to gather this information BEFORE you leave your job!

1. Pull up as many Congratulatory and Good Job emails/notes you can find. Who recognized you? Were they C-level? What did they recognize you for? Take note of all of the small and large accomplishments that warranted recognition.
2. Performance Reviews. If your company believes in this practice take the all the positives you can find out of your reviews. If there were any negatives that you have since addressed, note your areas of improvement and how much you improved in these areas.
3. Collect stats on your accomplishments. And lots of them. Stats help you prove your success in your resume.

If you feel your enthusiasm for your current job starting to waiver, work hard to find a way to be happy at your job (new position, new responsibility, etc) or find a way to get another job! Waiting too long (months quickly turn in to years) as an unhappy employee will hurt your ability to a) stay employed and b) remain a marketable employee to a new company. Your quality of work starts to suffer making it harder to add to your Brag Book if you are not enjoying your current position.

And if you like your job, use this process to ask for a raise!

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