Our 20 best tips ever…and here are the 1st 5!

It’s our 20^th anniversary in business! And over the last 20 years working with over 5,000 amazing clients, I’ve boiled down our best career progress tips to this list. This is super cool stuff, so get ready to take some notes and take some ACTION, because I predict that you will have some moments where you say, “Oh, that’s a good idea,” or, “That’s a great resource.”

So, without further ado, we’ll dive in.

Tip #1:   Our first tip is around getting clear on what your values are. This is a great place to start, because for whatever’s going on with you right now that you’re on this call, that you’re looking for more resources and guidance, it could be that something in your professional life is out of balance, meaning that your values are not aligned as you would ideally like for them to be. If you can be clear on what your top three values are, it just helps you pinpoint what is it that you need to tweak. For me, one of my top values is balance. Very important for me to have a high degree of control over my schedule so that I can work at the times that are peak performance hours for me, that I have time to fit in exercise and fitness, that I can be with my friends and family. If things get out of balance with that, then I know I need to go in and do a little bit of tweaking.

What are your top three values? I encourage you to go ahead and write those down, at least one or two that might come to mind for you. I’ll tell you the ones that are usually at the top of the list for a lot of people: family; achievement; balance, as I already talked about; learning; etc. So whatever clicks for you. If you need more of an idea on that, just Google “values list” and you’ll get tens of them to pick from. All right, that’s the first one, a really great idea.

Tip #2:   The second tip I want to talk about is the importance of having a focus. I promise you it is worth the attention and effort to get clear on that. When I think of a focus, especially from a career perspective, I’m thinking of it in two parts: What is your role–the job, the title for what you’re targeting, such as marketing specialist or CEO or accounting manager, etc.? Those are all a role. Then the other piece is the industry.

As far as the industry, it could be a variety of things and it can pay off for you if you get aligned to an industry that is meaningful or interesting to you. If you’re feeling a little flat at some point in your career, sometimes you can just look at switching industries. Examples: education or manufacturing or telecommunications. Think of what we used to look at in terms of the Yellow Pages. Those are industry listings. Having a focus around what role and industry or industries are most appealing to you will help make everything else in your search easier.

Now, you might be thinking, “Well, if I leave my focus more open I’ll have more options.” But in reality, that’s actually the opposite of what happens because without a focus it’s hard for you to align your activities for the greatest results.

Tip #3:   Make getting focused your focus! If the focus piece is a conundrum for you, you’re not alone. 70% of adults are not clear on what they want next in their career focus. That’s 70%, seven out of 10. So if you feel a little fuzzy on that yourself, you’re in the majority. Let’s make your focus to get focused. That can be an activity that you decide you’re going to put some attention to. My favorite activity around that is to, first of all, define some role and industry possibilities. Put together a what if possibilities list, like, “This might be interesting, this might be interesting.”

By the way, we provide career support in that area, building that idea list, and then we also provide support for exploring to discover which niches make the most sense for you. A process that I’ve had such great results with clients is for them to interview people who are already working in the niche areas that they’re considering. Those are called career research interviews. They’re purely for research. They’re not for job search, but they will give you an insider’s perspective on what it would be like to develop a career within a certain focus. That’s something where we provide connections for clients. So if you’re not focused, my tip number three is that you make that your focus, to get focused. All right.

Tip #4:  Keep a balance between your education and experience. As an example, not long ago I had a conversation with a very talented woman in her mid-30s who has climbed within organizations to where she’s now managing a team, but she never finished her college degree. What  she’s discovered is, without that college degree, every time she wants to make a move to a different organization they want to put her back down a few levels so that she can then be more entry-level and work her way up again, rather than just saying, “Okay, she’s done the degree. We can check that off. I have confidence that she’ll be able to handle this management role,” and it just makes being portable easier. So keeping those in line.

Another instance are individuals who love being in academic environments and spend a chunk of time as a student, and then their education gets way ahead of their actual work experience. Then, when they start to apply for jobs, they look overqualified from the education perspective but underqualified in the experience section. So you really want to keep those two things in line. Ask yourself, “How’s my balance right now? If I look around at my peers, am I pretty much in line in terms of my education, my experience? If I think about my next step, would I need more education, a particular certification, a graduate degree, etc.?” So paying attention to those.

Tip #5: Tip number five is, when you are clear on your focus, to make sure that all of your pieces are aligned. Your resume, LinkedIn, how you’re responding in interviews. You want all of those support resources to tell the story of you in this focus area. What you want to convey is a picture of where you’re going, not a picture of where you’ve been. Make sure those pieces are aligned. If someone’s looking at my LinkedIn profile, do they have a clear picture of what I’m aiming for or what I’m qualified to do? Okay, that’s tip number five.