Tips for Success
Wie sehen Ihre beruflichen Pläne für 2020 aus? Streben Sie eine Beförderung bei Ihrem jetzigen Arbeitgeber an? Oder denken Sie an einen Stellenwechsel? Zum Auftakt unseres Sonderbeitrags zum Thema „Karriere“gibt Ihnen LOIS HOYAL 20 Ratschläge, wie Sie sic
Your career plan for 2020
Had enough of your job? Ready for a career change? Or do you simply want to stand out in the workplace and finally get that promotion? Then make a plan now to implement our 20 tips for your career in 2020.
u Find a mentor
We can all benefit from the wisdom of other people’s experience, which is why a mentor at work is such a good idea. A mentor can be a sounding board for your ideas and provide you with clear advice and honest insights. Ideally, the mentor should be someone who is years ahead of you on the learning curve and represents who you want to become in the future. Equally, it could be several people, who can provide different insights.
Mentors can also ease the transition to any new, unfamiliar workplace, as Flavia Collins discovered while acting as a mentor in marketing subscriptions at Reed Business Information. “I think it was quite useful for new starters to have someone who knew the ropes who they could ask questions of,” she explains. www.volunteer-vision.com
v Give it a try
Completing a short internship is an easy way to prove you’re suitable for a job. What’s more, an internship helps you better understand a potential employer and the world of work. Look online to find the right internship. www.meinpraktikum.de
w Join the club
You can’t go wrong with membership of a professional association. Membership can provide you with free or discounted courses and conferences and, more importantly, networking opportunities.
Howard Elliot-jones is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) in the UK. “If nothing else, it provides a degree of credibility when negotiating,” he says. “It also often opens up new opportunities, particularly as some companies only recruit qualified surveyors.”
Look out for a similar association for your profession. www.rics.org
x Pimp your CV
Why should you write your curriculum vitae (CV) yourself, when a professional can help you by doing it better? “One of the key benefits of hiring a CV writer is the external perspective they bring,” says Neville Rose, director of CV Writers, one of the UK’S leading CV writing services.
“It’s important to approach writing a CV from the point of view of the recruiter,” he says. “The more you can focus your CV on the specifics an employer is looking for, the better your CV will perform. This can be difficult to do yourself. Being immersed in your job can make it difficult to approach it from any other way than writing from your own perspective. A CV writer can overcome this and get you thinking more deeply about your achievements and how to quantify these.” Rose recommends starting with a detailed consultation so that the CV writer can understand you better and identify your key strengths.
www.cv-writers.org.uk y Put it on camera
How else can you make your CV stand out? Well, why not submit it in video format? Video CVS are increasing in popularity, particularly for creative and customer-facing roles, as businesses look for new ways to attract a more diverse range of candidates, explains Sarah Brookes, marketing director at Prospects, careers experts for graduates.
And the increasing popularity of video CVS is justified, says Brookes. “Competition for jobs is high, and a video CV can offer an effective way to impress recruiters, helping you to stand out as someone prepared to go the extra mile. They can also help you to get across your personality and demonstrate particular skills, such as creativity, communication and digital skills.”
A word of caution, though: some recruiters might prefer to scan quickly through a traditional written document and may therefore resent the time needed to watch a video CV. And if you’re shy in front of a camera, then video CVS are probably not the right solution for you. Otherwise, you’ll stand out for the wrong reasons.
www.prospects.ac.uk/about-us U Get out of your comfort zone
If you’ve been in your job for a while, you can probably do it in your sleep by now. That’s good, right? Wrong. It’s when we start to coast that the problems start. In time, comfort will turn into boredom.
Career-change coach Avery Roth advises applying for a new job even if you’re not looking for a change. “Executives often find themselves in roles that are comfortable but are not fulfilling them as deeply as they’d like. Applying for a job in the realm of ‘the ideal role’ can shift one’s mindset to the possibility of that dream becoming reality.”
www.averyroth.com V Picture this
Visualize a bright future so that you can turn it into reality. Visualization helps bridge the gap between where you are in your career and where you want to be, says US executive leadership coach Cynthia Corsetti. “The fact is that 90 per cent of the impact and influence that is necessary to progress comes from intangible things like thoughts, moods and emotions.”
So, how does visualization work? Corsetti suggests painting a clear picture in your mind of the “highest version” of yourself. “Think about your career right now and imagine that it’s in a box,” she says. “But say you want to go further. This is where you create a vision of another box. If it has you in a higher position, what has to be different about you to get there? You obviously have to step up your game. Once you get a clear visualization of that second box, you can begin to operate as if you’re already that leader. ”
Corsetti also has advice on how you should respond to situations at work. “When a situation comes up at work, don’t simply react. Ask yourself: how would that future version of me respond? How would that higher version of myself handle this? And then do that.”
Video CVS are increasingly popular, particularly for creative and customerfacing roles
www.cynthiacorsetti.com W Turn weak to strong
It’s that dreaded interview question: what are your weaknesses? So, how about doing away with that professional weakness? Make a list of your weaknesses and then set goals on how to improve them. When that interview comes around, you can talk about how you’ve turned a past weakness into a strength.
www.wikijob.co.uk/content/interview-advice/interview-questions/ what-are-your-weaknesses
X Work less, do more
It sounds like a paradox, but working shorter hours may help us achieve more.
Andrew Barnes, founder of the estate-planning company Perpetual Guardian, has introduced a four-day week at his New Zealand company. The idea is to let employees better manage their work-life balance so they can focus on work during company time. “In an always connected world, one of the greatest impediments to creative thinking and leadership is the lack of downtime and the space to relax, recharge and re-evaluate ideas, concepts and opportunities,” says Barnes. “It’s my belief that if you truly want to stand out from the crowd, creativity is essential. And this isn’t possible if you don’t allow yourself the space to dream. The four-day week gives us that space.” Barnes says that other benefits include lowering our carbon footprint and improved mental health.
www.perpetualguardian.co.nz www.4dayweek.com/our-people at Sell your value
Seeking a job promotion? Your performance review might well be the best way to win it. Build up a solid case to prove your worth, remind your boss of any recent accomplishments and show how you contribute to the company’s bottom line.
And start early. Roberta Matuson, president of Matuson Consulting and author of the forthcoming book Evergreen Talent, advises her clients to provide their boss with a self-evaluation several weeks before their review date. “When doing so, be sure to include all of your accomplishments, and monetize wherever possible. Also, include one or two areas where you believe you have opportunities for growth,” she told Business Spotlight.
www.matusonconsulting.com/site/roberta-chinksy-matuson.php ak Get the app
Nowadays, there’s an app for everything. Try Todoist for to-do lists and task management, Asana for project management, allowing teams to track work and project results, and Calendar for choosing and booking meeting times directly linked to your calendar.
www.todoist.com www.asana.com www.calendar.com al Educate yourself
Take advantage of free online learning courses, such as those provided by Khan Academy, to extend your existing skill set. Many well-known universities also offer free or cheap online courses. For example, it won’t hurt your CV if you can say you have done a course at Harvard or Cambridge.
www.khanacademy.org https://online-learning.harvard.edu www.ice.cam.ac.uk/courses/online-courses am Date a stranger
A lunch date is a great way to catch up with established colleagues. But how about having lunch with a colleague you don’t know at all well? Hardware developer Jesenka Veledar Krüger in Munich returned home from holiday to find she had a new boss, whom she’d never met before. A lunch date helped break the ice. “As a joke, I asked her if I should bring a red carnation, but we managed to find each other in the canteen,” she jokes. “Having lunch together helped me get to know her and realize she was someone I could trust.”
Have lunch with a colleague you don't know at all well
www.candacesmithetiquette.com/lunch-interview.html an Keep in touch
While forging new contacts, also nurture your existing relationships. Send out Christmas cards, invite a contact you haven’t seen for a while for a coffee or send an email to keep in touch.
www.moo.com/uk/christmas-cards ao Ride your way to success
Sport can help your mind to be in a healthier place for making decisions at work. Horse riding, for example,promotes both physical and psychological strength, says Susanne Fuß, riding teacher at Reiterhof Aschbach. “Riding is more than just a physical sport involving your whole body, muscles and flexibility. Moving together with a horse is also a mental challenge. It’s a matter of connecting with the animal and forming a relationship so that you can reach a common goal. It’s necessary for the rider to take the lead, but not by applying pressure, but rather by using mental strength. This ultimately promotes body awareness and self-confidence and leads to a more stable personality. This is invaluable at work, as it leads to a more centred and reliable employee. Handling a horse correctly develops leadership skills.”
www.wir-reiten.com
ap Sleep on the job
Afternoon siesta, anyone? A short snooze of ten to 20 minutes can improve productivity by 30 per cent, benefit your mood and improve your learning ability and your memory, says Christopher Lindholst, CEO of Metronaps, the maker of special office sleep stations called Energypods, used by Google and Nasa, among other organizations. Taking three naps per week has been shown to reduce your chances of cardiovascular disease by almost 50 per cent, Lindholst explains. And it’s a lot easier than going to the gym.
Employees wishing to snooze are enclosed in a comfy chair and can then be woken up after 20 minutes by music and vibration. The only problem is that an Energypod costs between $8,000 and $13,000 (€7,200–€11,800), which may be enough to keep you awake at night.
www.metronaps.com aq Go digital
In this digital age, if you and your CV aren’t online, then potential employers can’t find you. Social media has become integral to the employment process and maintaining an active presence is essential to finding the right job, says Clive France, a digital entrepreneur based in Brisbane and London.
“Candidates should be active in broad-spectrum social media sites like Linkedin,” he says. “But also, establishing a presence and identity within your chosen profession or area of interest is vital and helps establish your credibility and suitability for the post.”
Managing your presence across platforms such as Linked In, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter can be time consuming. Thankfully, there are tools that can streamline and simplify the task. These include Hootsuite, the website and app that responds to your fans and followers, and analyses your social media presence. Sprout is a more expensive alternative.
“Whatever service you use to streamline the task, or whether you manage each profile individually, you need to post often, with authority and respond in a timely fashion,” warns France.
“Prospective employers are watching, and your social media profile can be an important factor in the process of finding a job.”
https://hootsuite.com https://sproutsocial.com 18 Cheer them on
Female cheerleaders are being introduced in tech companies across China, according to the state-run “Trending in China” Facebook page. Apparently, “pretty, talented” girls are being employed “to create a fun work environment”. The job description includes “buying programmers breakfast, chitchatting and playing ping-pong”. The female cheerleaders are said to have improved the male programmers’ efficiency and motivation. So, how about some male cheerleaders, too, for a bit of balance?
www.facebook.com/trendinginchina 19 Do a little moonlighting
One guaranteed way to get a foot in the door at a new company is to impress them while working there part-time. So, why not consider a little “moonlighting” — doing an additional, part-time job? You never know — they might offer you a fulltime position.
www.moonlighting.com 20 Ask for support
Unsure about what to do next in your career? Then seek professional advice. Career support centres allow you to explore career options. You can look through hundreds of individual job descriptions to find out the average pay and necessary qualifications for various jobs. And try out a skills assessment to learn what work might suit you. Alternatively, find a course to brush up your existing skills — or to learn new ones.
https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk