How to Level Up Your Career For The New Year
Career advancement is topping many new year’s goal lists at the moment. And it’s no wonder, with the current state of the world and the looming uncertainty of opening borders. Combined with the digital disruption and the changing economic landscape, many people are looking for ways to level up their career for the new year.
Here are six ways you can level up your career for the new year.
Find a Mentor
Get yourself a workplace mentor or an industry mentor. You can do this through official programs or by simply finding someone at your workplace who can help shape your career. A mentor can help you to climb the ladder at work.
Workplace Mentor
If you approach someone in the workplace and request their help and mentorship, make sure you and your mentor, go to your boss to establish this as a legitimate mentorship program. It’s important for HR reasons that the whole process be documented and it will also mean your mentor can put it on their CV so it can be a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Outside Mentorship Program
If you go through an outside mentorship program, make sure you choose a mentor who will help you achieve what you want within your industry and career. For instance, if you’re currently working in finance as a financial planner but you want to run your own company working as a financial advisor and helping people expand their investment portfolios, you’ll want to find a mentor who can advise on starting your own business and the stock market. Always vet your mentor for the best possible outcome based on your goals.
Studying / RPL
Gaining a qualification or an additional qualification is always a good move. Having the piece of paper can legitimise your position or your play for a promotion. There are so many different options for studying now that mean you don’t need to interrupt your working schedule.
Studying online
Asset College offers online study for many of our courses. Studying online provides the freedom to set your own schedule and move at your own pace. You can start studying at any time. You don’t have to wait for a new semester or term to start your studying journey. And there are no scheduled classes, you are sent all your course work for the unit and you work through it at your own pace. And if you get stuck, you have a trainer assigned that you can reach out whenever you’re needing help.
RPL
If you’ve been working in your field for a while and never actually studied to complete your qualification you might not have to! You may be able to gain the qualification through Recognised Prior Learning. Recognised Prior Learning or RPL is the process of showing your skills and experience meets the course competencies. RPL is a faster and cheaper way of gaining your qualification, it can often be up to half the price of completing the course through full study and can take a little as two weeks to three months to get everything completed. You can learn more about RPL here. Or simply complete our free skills assessment to see if you would be a good candidate for RPL.
The Boss Course
If you’re wanting to study to level up your career but you don’t know exactly what to study, think about doing the Certificate IV or Diploma in Leadership and Management. This course is basically a boss course. It teaches you everything you might need to know to become a manager or a leader in your industry. The course is all online and you can start anytime and study from anywhere in Australia.
Career Coach
Investing in a career coach in your industry has a wealth of benefits. Their whole job is to analyse your career and tell you how to accomplish what you want. If, for example, you want to earn more and specialise in a particular area of your industry, they will develop a plan to help you achieve that. If you’re interested in working less but still climbing the career ladder, they will have suggestions for that too.
Support
The great thing about getting a career coach is they are there to help you define what you really want out of your career and provide feedback and support when you are trying to figure it all out.
Guidance
Most career coaches have a background in Human Resources or recruitment so they will be able to review your experience and your goals and help you chose the right steps to get to the career you want from the one you have.
Invest in your Strengths
Is there an area you excel at in your work and can you double down on it and make this your specialty? Niching down and becoming an expert in a particular area can really help you to level up your career.
Do a specialty course
Find and complete a short specialty course in an area that you have shown a natural talent for. For example, if you have a talent for digital marketing and analytics, invest in a course or personalised training session on google analytics.
Start a side hustle in your niche
If you are particularly skilled in one area of your industry, consider offering one on one coaching or consulting on this subject. Branching out in this way improves your authority on the topic and deepens your understanding while also establishing your name as leader in the industry.
Network
Networking and building your reputation are an essential part of your career at every stage and level but especially when you are trying to level up to the next phase of your career.
Set a monthly goal
Set a monthly goal for networking. Try to attend at least one industry event a month whether it’s a breakfast, fundraising lunch or an industry drinks event. Try to make sure you find and schedule in at least one event each month. Having a monthly goal means that you maintain and strengthen your existing connections in your industry and establish a few new connections each month.
Always follow up
After attending an industry event make sure you follow up on any contacts you made. If you offered any advice or to exchange any connections you had, email them, remind them who you were and how you met and follow it up with a personal comment to show you listened to them. Then provide whatever information you offered or connect them with the person you knew who could help and this will help you to stick out in their mind.
Grow your Online Brand
The truth is a resume is not always enough in a lot of professional industries these days. Your social media, LinkedIn and professional standing in your industry needs to be top tier to land those important contracts and roles.
Social Media Networking
Depending on your industry and your operations you may need a professional Facebook page and Instagram but at the very least you’ll need a LinkedIn. You get out what you put in with social media so make some time each week to post about projects at work, share news or tips about your industry and engage with other connections in your field.
Establish your voice
Growing your online brand is a challenge but if you want to be a leader in your field, you need to start showing up where the leaders do. Offer to do speaking arrangements, book interviews on podcasts, write op ed pieces for publications on your industry. All of this will establish your voice as a leader in your field.
Level up your career this year by putting some of these activities on your New Years’ Resolution list!