FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2014
Quick Tip: 4 Ways to Spring Forward with Your Career
By Sharon Davis, Senior Recruiter, LAC Group
It’s been a hard and bitter winter and, like the landscape around you, your career may seem frozen in a block of ice. But spring, the season of growth and new beginnings, is just around the corner. Here are a few tips to help you break the log jam, thaw out your resume and plant the seeds of opportunity.
1. Don’t get stuck in the Ice Age. Maybe you have a great deal of experience but the work that you did in 1990 is outdated and may not be relevant to the demands of a modern work place. Limit the scope of your resume to positions you have held for the last 10 to 15 years. Let the reader know that you are forward-thinking and up for new challenges by demonstrating how you have accepted progressively responsible positions, or how you have gone above and beyond the fundamental requirements of your current or previous jobs.
2. Till the soil – update your skill set. If you are looking to make a job change or seeking advancement with your current employer and have noticed that your skills are lacking, it is time to add value to your experience by getting some additional training. Community colleges and small privately-held training institutions offer a variety of low-cost courses to help you update software skills, improve written and oral communication skills, and obtain project management or other certifications.
3. Plant seeds within your network. While you should never underestimate the value of a skilled recruiter when it comes to identifying new opportunities, is important to remember that not all positions are posted. Leveraging your own contacts is a great way of expanding the number of available opportunities, while obtaining valuable information about prospective employers. The more information you have, the greater the opportunities to cultivate the right situations and weed out those that are not appropriate for you.
4. Consider a career metamorphosis. If you have been doing the same type of work for a prolonged period of time and find it routine and unrewarding, it may be time for a career make over. If you are not looking to change employers but want to bloom where you are planted, look to your current employer to see if there are opportunities for advancement or job enhancement through a change in responsibilities. Absent opportunities within your current organization, you may want to take stock of your transferable skills and do the research necessary to identify other organizations or types of positions that will most effectively utilize your talents and cultivate your interests.
Whatever course you choose, don’t forget that in order to make a change you need to take action. Spring forward!
