Career ambitions are great, in fact, you cannot have a great career without first having the ambition. However, having the ambition is not enough, to achieve your career goal, you need to be strategic and work towards it.
In this time of uncertainty, it is so easy to lose focus of your goal in the very vital pursuit of survival, but if you’re looking for how to continue to pave your way towards career excellence regardless of all that is happening, then you’re in luck because this article is for you.
So, here are four simple ways you can put your career growth on cruise control while navigating the new normal.
Draw Up A Career Map
If you didn’t have one, now is the time to make yours, if you had one but had simply abandoned it, it is time to dust it clean and paste in on your vision board. Or maybe you have one on your board already, you might still need to re-evaluate it to ensure that it is not obsolete with all that is happening.
Career mapping, is the career progression graph created by organisations to help employees understand their personal career growth trajectory.
Understanding your organisation’s career map helps you understand whether your growth prospects within the organisation align with your dreams.
Looking at the map, you can also tell whether you have the qualifications to be at the position where you envisage yourself, if not you need to do something about it. (more on this below)
Get A Mentor
The position you are dreaming of attaining is being occupied by someone. Find that someone whether they are in your organization or not and make them your mentor.
Of course you can have more than one mentor and all of them mustn’t be from your profession.
Mentoring is a system of semi-structured guidance, whereby one person shares their knowledge, skills and experience to help others progress in their own careers and lives.
Get a mentor that is interested in you, is readily accessible and prepared to offer help as the need arises (within agreed boundaries.)
They’ll help you advance your career and grow professionally because they inspire, inform and hold you accountable to what you have stated you will do.
It’s like walking the mile with someone who has been there and back; you can’t get missing.
This period, people have a bit more time on their hands and your mentor might also have some spare time. It’s a good time to engage them, get recommendations from them and implement.
Grow Your Network
The world might be on a lockdown but the internet never locks down. With increased time online consuming digital contents, now is a great time to connect with people in your industry and grow your network.
LinkedIn has a great feature that enables you to search for people by where they work or even the type of job they do and their position.
This is a great way to cut through the noise and reach the right people that might become the ladder you need in order to climb the corporate ladder tomorrow.
Connect with them now and start building relationships.
Upskill or Get A Degree Online
Courtesy of online learning, you do not need to wait until the pandemic is over before you can acquire a certification or degree that you need to add a stack to your credentials.
You can study from the comfort of your home, using any digital device connected to the Internet, from a PC or a smartphone. You can access study material 24/7, conduct research in e-libraries and exchange ideas and experiences with professionals around the globe.
In conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic has undeniably caused the world much catastrophe, but there are certain things that you cannot blame on the coronavirus when this is over.
Things like the actions you didn’t take.
