OWNING YOUR CAREER

Five tactics for women to adopt

Many women believe that hard work and loyalty will be enough to see them advance in their careers. City CV CEO Victoria McLean makes a case for taking ownership of your career, in order to progress and stand out from the crowd.

According to a Saïd Business School study of female CEOs, the critical success factor for women who want to reach the top is ‘active ownership of her leadership career.’ Yet, too many women believe that if they simply do good work, someone will notice and put them forward for a promotion or high-profile project. That rarely happens.

Owning your career means not waiting to be asked or, relying on anyone else. Instead, you create a career plan where you’ll develop a rounded and distinctive blend of skills. If that sounds daunting, don’t panic. Here are five practical tactics to help you ‘own’ your career:

1 Think long term

Back in 2012, Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former foreign policy adviser to Hillary Clinton, published an article in The Atlantic about ‘why women still can’t have it all.’ She opened the floodgates to the conversations we’re all now having about how women’s careers are not generally linear. For too long we’ve tended to regard successful professionals as people who can climb the ladder the furthest, fastest.

It’s a model that was well suited to men in the 20th century. You’d start work in your twenties, reach your career peak in your mid-forties and saunter along to retirement at 65. However, that straightforward trajectory frequently doesn’t work for women. And why should we waste our time and energy trying to make ourselves fit an outdated model?

You might, for example, build your credentials and establish your career in your twenties and thirties. Then take a step back to focus on family and then re-immerse yourself back into your career sometime in your fifties. Or, you might take a very different approach.

Whatever path you choose, the career climb is rarely a straight upward slope. There are irregular steps and sideways moves, plateaus and maybe even dips. You might have perfectly good reasons for turning down a promotion or stepping off the conventional career path for a while.

Most people will now change jobs 10 to 15 times during their career. Factor in freelancing, entrepreneurship, and a working life of 50 years or more, and you have a lot of career manoeuvring to plan for.

Effective career planning will help you understand your goals and what factors contribute to your physical, emotional and financial wellbeing. It will help you step back and evaluate everything you like and dislike about your current and previous roles. What ignites your curiosity and what frustrates you?

2 Conduct a skills audit

A skills audit is also a worthwhile exercise. Start by listing all your achievements – professional and personal. Think about every role you’ve had. What skills did you develop and what benefits did you bring to your employer? Be specific; did you boost sales, transform a team or deliver successful projects?

Your career might be a game of two halves. Or it might be a series of strategic chess moves. What matters is that you don’t just leave it all to chance.

3 Develop your personal brand

Look at job ads for roles that interest you. Compare the requirements with your skills audit. Spot any gaps? Start researching how to fill them with further training, self-study or online courses and webinars.

Be absolutely clear on the skills, experiences and benefits you bring. Could you sum up your USP (Unique selling proposition) in two or three powerful and concise sentences?

4 Run your own marketing campaign

You have to be your own cheerleader. Your CV must be compelling, achievement focused and targeted to each individual role to beat both the Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and the competition. And, you can’t afford to ignore LinkedIn. It’s used by over 90% of recruiters and is the leading professional networking and personal branding platform.

You also need to be visible in your chosen field. Face-to-face networking is still hugely important for connecting with like-minded professionals and discovering potential job vacancies. That said, there are now great opportunities to network through social media.

5 Plan for career breaks or setbacks

When you map out action steps and leverage your strengths, you take charge of your career. That means, if you want to take a career break or just take your foot off the pedal for a time, you’ll have a plan in place. With improved self-knowledge, you can identify skills gaps or areas for personal development, such as interview techniques or presentation skills.

If you do take a career break, try to keep a foot in the door. Keep up with developments in your field and maintain your professional network. That way, you’ll have the tools to navigate the challenge of returning to work or re-igniting your glittering career in the future.

A robust career plan gives you the confidence to think big, take brave decisions and calculated risks. We’re talking about putting together a roadmap of guiding principles and priorities, rather than a rigid timetable. That way, you can evaluate the costs and benefits of various options and remain open to unexpected opportunities or life events.