Some of us are really fortunate to know what we want to do in life and what avenue we want to take with our careers. You learn the right skills, take the necessary tests and degrees, and end up loving what you do each day. Others don’t find it so easy, and can often just fall into a career simply because they had commitments and bills to pay. However, for many of those people, that career does turn into something they enjoy doing, or at least have the passion to improve upon. So how do you step up the career ladder? What steps do you need to take? I thought I would share with you some of the building blocks to help you do that.
Decide on the direction you want to take
One of the first things anyone needs to do is to take some time to consider what direction they want their career to go in. Are you in a sales environment? Do you want to change your job focus? Perhaps management is on the cards? Knowing what you want to do can really help you build your own action plan on how you intend on getting there.
Will any additional learning or training help you get there?
It doesn’t just happen overnight, and often with your choice of direction, you may need to think about whether you can support yourself in other ways and one thing to consider would be additional learning and training. It might be consider management courses and skills from companies like STL, or looking into industry leading sales courses on how to improve your current skills. Look at what you want to do and what skills would be best to improve to help get you there.
Start to show your presence in the workplace
Having your plan is one thing, it is now time to really make your presence known in the workplace and stand out from the crowd. Work on your sales strategy and smash those targets, speak up in meetings and express your opinion or ideas, have the confidence to outshine your current job. These things can help when looking to move forward for promotion.
Take on additional responsibility and show initiative
You may not want to take on more work load, but this can be a great way to show initiative and added responsibility. Which can then prove that you are more than capable to take the next step in your career. It might mean getting to work a little earlier, or being the last one in the office to leave. But all of the above can be positive steps to get you where you want to be.
Communicate with key people about what you want to achieve
Finally, it is really important for you to communicate with key people about where you see your future. Your line manager or other key figures can help guide you or offer advice on how to get to the job you want in the future. They have your best interests at heart.
I hope these tips help you to step up the career ladder.
