What To Focus On
The most obvious aspect to focus on while taking care of your career is how you present yourself or represent yourself with others. From start to finish, appearing as your best self is important while you’re at work. However, I think it is equally as important to remember not to compare yourself to others too much. Looking nice and being your best can look completely different from person to person. As long as you know you’re giving it your all, there should never be reason for concern.
Personally, I think this next tip gets lost and forgotten more often than anything else that happens at work. Making and maintaining as many good contacts as possible should be every person’s number one goal in their career! I think that this can be hard, especially when coworkers leave unexpectedly. It’s hard to remember to be happy for them and not be hurt by their absence. You never know who you’ll need in your corner or who will be telling others about your work. It’s not always fun, but it’s better to not take things too personally and just be happy for others, rather than burn bridges.
What to Keep Updated
Whether we are all ready to admit it or not, how you present yourself online is essential to your career. The things that you say and the way you portray yourself online can effect the way others see you. Your social media presence has a very real ramification on your job. Now more than ever, the accountability you need to have when you’re on your social media is essential to caring for your career. Even though it is your personal page, company’s have been known to hop on and see what kind of a person they are prospectively hiring, outside of a very formal and controlled interview setting.
So if you’re social media does not reflect the person you want them to see, then the best advice I can give is to just be mindful of the things you post. If you think it might get you into trouble, it might be better to leave it off of your page. One of the ways I get around this is by exclusively “liking” posts instead of sharing them. It keeps my timelines and pages looking clean and positive, while still allowing me to participate on social media.
More to keep in mind is maintaining your resume. Making sure that it is updated and easily accessible is a great skill to practice. If you keep it updated all the time, you’ll never have to struggle with any drastic edits. Saving documents like your resume to location that you can access from anywhere, like from your phone, allows you to show off a plethora of skills. You are able to demonstrate that you are tech-savvy, a go-getter, and very organized.
Your LinkedIn page is the perfect tool for hosting your achievements and is much more important than you think! Where most companies use social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to look at the character of a person, LinkedIn is used to look at the business side of people. All of your skills and work history can be easily stored there for others to see. Not only that, but if you set up a list of your skills, others you’ve worked with can go in and rate your skills! Making LinkedIn the perfect combination of work appropriate materials and social connections/networking.
Tips and Tricks
- Be Polite: Always put your best self out there! Not that you shouldn’t be polite just for the sake of being kind, but you never know who you’ll run into outside of your home.
- Be Professional: Any time you are at work or representing your organization, remember to stay professional. This could very simply be maintaining a professional composure while at work and affiliated events. If you’re wearing your company’s logo, be aware of the way you behave. If you feel like something outside of your job could hurt your reputation at your job, it’s probably better to just leave that something alone.
- Be Prepared: Being prepared doesn’t necessarily mean having all of your work materials on you at all times of the day. Keeping those materials up to date and in working order, however, leads to fast turnaround time and an overall appearance of being prepared. Promptness with new or existing contacts can be that little thing that sets you apart from others!
- Be Persistent: You might feel like you’re being overbearing and annoying, but never be afraid to follow up for the things you want. It isn’t good enough to just interview well and then leave it up to others. Even if you don’t get the job you want, you’ll know that you did everything in your power in your pursuit of that job. Don’t be afraid; persistence is a positive work skill!
Extras!
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Feeling like you might be struggling at a few of these tips for showing your career some care? Check out our blog post, “Better Business Networking: Tips and Tricks for Introverts,” for more tips and trick on nurturing your career!