Top 15 Ways to get ahead in your Career – Job Description And Resume Examples

Top 15 Ways to get ahead in your Career

This post presents great tips and ideas on how to get ahead and achieve success in your career; to help you reach the goals you have set for yourself.

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What is a Career?

A career could be seen as a niche you have chosen for yourself, as something you engage yourself in, and what is capable of generating income for you daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly, or on contract basis.

So your career is one way to make ends meet.

One of the challenges a lot of people face is not really how to kick-start their careers but how to develop, improve, and achieve success in it.

Sometimes, not knowing how to do this could lead to a lot of confusion and frustration, which could lead to one giving up on him or herself and his/her career.

With this in mind, let us quickly look at some of the best ways by which you can get ahead and achieve the success that you desire in your career:

How to get ahead in your Career – Top 15 Ways

Be open to evaluation

Evaluation is one of the ways you can ascertain how you are doing in your career.

At each point in time, you need to know if you are making progress in your career or you are retrogressing.

This is important if you want to make your career a better one.

One of the best sets of people you can ask for evaluation could be your manager in the office.

This is the person who can tell you how far you are doing in your career since he/she is the one that monitors your activities in the organization where you work.

Your manager with all sincerity could tell you where you are doing well and where you need to work on.

He/she should know your strengths and weaknesses and could offer valuable advice on how to deal with your weaknesses if you want to have a good career.

Deal with procrastination

This is the number one enemy you must avoid in your career.

Procrastination remains one of the reasons a lot of people don’t get things done and at the right time.

There is always this feeling that there is a better time to do what you need to do now.

Avoid procrastination at all cost.

Whatever it is that you have chosen as a career, procrastination is one weakness that can ruin it.

It is one weakness you should not hesitate to deal with.

You must be up and doing and make no room for excuses and laziness whatever.

Excuses work in tandem with procrastination.

Sometimes, you could find reasons to justify your procrastination, but bear in mind that at the end of the day, the effects of procrastination leaves you with a lot of work to do without sufficient time to do them.

Take a course related to your career

Improvement in what you do, including your career is important. You must find ways to get better in your career.

Reaching the top of the ladder of your career must be the motivation you need to give your utmost best to your career.

Apart from the regular experience you gain by working every day, one potent way of improving yourself in your career is to take a professional course on the career you have chosen.

For every career, there is at least one professional course you can take on to enhance your career.

Taking a professional course could afford you the privilege of meeting more opportunities.

There are some opportunities that cannot be made available to you if you have not upgraded your knowledge and certifications in the career you have chosen.

Make your plans

Your plans could be the turning point in your career. All other things are important but none is as important as the plans you make for yourself concerning the career you have chosen.

Most organizations will definitely ask you related questions before they hire you.

When you plan, you plan for both the short and the long term.

Short term planning could be the planning you make just for a short period of time like say a year or something less than that.

Short term plan could help you plan for the future too.

Then you have the long term plan.

The long term plan spans beyond a year. It is a plan that is made putting the future in context.

This is very important as it could decide the type of professional course you can take and other factors to be put in place.

Challenge yourself

Challenging yourself is like pushing yourself out of your comfort zone.

There is every tendency for you to relax in the way your career is moving simply because you have no competitor or the pay is alright.

But when you set your eyes on the larger picture, you will have no choice than to challenge yourself.

In taking on new challenges, never you be afraid of making mistakes.

Don’t worry yourself when you seem to struggle with every process in your new challenge.

Just keep your head up and do your thing and believe it that you will be alright in the end.

Discuss with human resource

Your workplace could have the human resource management department or something similar to that.

They are the other set of people you could go to for advice apart from your manager.

You just need to walk up to them and ask for the best of advice.

The human resource department of an organization is not only interested in hiring employees for the organization, but in also giving tips and advice on how the individual employees could make the most out of their careers.

This is one of their jobs.

However, they are not the ones to walk up to you and tell you these things.

You have to take the initiative and walk up to them to seek for advice.

When questions are being asked, please be sincere and thorough with your answers as this will help give you the advice you need.

Read more about your industry

You may not succeed in any industry where you are a novice.

You have to understand the industry where your career falls into and have the basic knowledge of the operations of the industry at your fingertips.

One of the ways to do that is to read up about your industry continuously.

Knowledge can expire, so you have to be up to date with the trends in the industry and know how to reinvent yourself to fit the mode and make the most out of your career.

There are different ways of keeping in touch with the trends in your industry, which include podcasts, television adverts, newspapers, magazines and other publications.

Always make out time to go through relevant information about your industry.

Improve your communication skills

Nobody dreams of succeeding in any career without good communication skills.

Your communications skill is so important that it can determine how long you can last in your career.

That is why you must improve your communication skills.

You have the complete package of communication if you are able to speak and write well.

Oral and written forms of communication are the two forms of communication you should excel in if you want to get ahead in your career.

Good communication skill has its uses, which you must know.

Both on a personal and general note, communication is one of the tools that enhances good teamwork and smooth dissemination of information.

This is a major skill you cannot afford to overlook to get ahead in your career.

Collaborate with others

Your success in your career is not solely dependent on what you know. What you know is important but that should not make you feel that you don’t need other people.

This is because human beings are the best tools and assets you have to grow your career.

You might have kick started your career through your excellent grades in school and other certifications you possess, but understand that there is a limit to what your certificates can do, and that is the point you will realize you need people.

Cherish the ideas of others and find a way to use those pieces of advice to get ahead in your career.

You just have to walk up to people and mingle with them.

Mingle with the right people with the right ideas and work with them. They can give you what you want.

Know your worth

There is a strong relationship between how you value yourself and how people value you.

If you don’t understand your worth in the industry, you are likely not going to understand what you can do.

This is a critical issue you must not joke with.

It is your self-worth that could provide you the confidence you need to take on new challenges.

You have to start believing in what you can do as an individual and the value you can bring to any group you find yourself in the industry.

So start seeing yourself as an asset and not a liability.

Any other thing can go down but not your self-worth.

You have to raise your head high and do what you know how to do best.
Don’t let anyone look down on you or put a cheap price tag on you.

See your career as your business

Some people don’t see their careers as a business. As long as your career has the ability to put food on your table, then it is a business.

It is a business because you are giving out your idea, strength, and commitment in exchange for money and other benefits.

Therefore, if your career is a business then you have to treat it like one.

In the business world, profit making is the motive behind what everyone does.

If your career is not yielding the expected profit, then it is time to upgrade it.

Business owners sometimes do some renovations and create something new to attract more patronage.

This should also apply to your career, in the sense that you must improve yourself and your skills for you to get ahead in your career.

You just have to upgrade yourself and your skills and you are alright.

Take care of your workspace

With the advent of online businesses, we no longer see marketplace as a physical structure or location but as a workspace.

Workspace is anywhere you are able to exchange your skills or goods for some good money.

Wherever you do your business is your workspace.

So, in your career, taking care of your workspace is very important to your success.

If you are a lawyer or legal personnel, your office must look like that of a law personnel.

Whatever you do, let your workspace show what you do.

This shows that you are serious about making a career for yourself in the industry you are into.

If you are working online maybe as a freelancer, then what you do online should give your potential clients a hint of what you do and what you are capable of achieving.

Reschedule your routine

You will need to reschedule your routine if your current schedules are not working or are clashing with each other.

What you do at that point is to change your routine.

It could demand total overhauling of your activities to be more efficient and productive.

How your activities go on daily basis will determine to an extent how your career pans out.

You don’t have to ignore your routines.

If they are not helpful or inefficient, nothing stops you from changing them to achieve your goals.

In rescheduling your routine, you should take note of the activities that have not been helpful to you for some time and change them or totally remove them.

When you change your activities, it affords you the freedom to achieve your daily goals.

Clean up any social media mess

Your social media activities matter a lot in whatever career you choose, especially if your career is the type that exposes you to people every day, or that puts you in the spot light.

You should be careful about what you post and the comments you make on posts.

Some organizations today demand that you tell them your social media handle in order for them to monitor your activities online.

This is because they know that some mistakes online could be detrimental to the fortunes of their organization.

So, clearing up any mess on your social media handles could be an effective way of getting ahead in your career.

Don’t be a social media freak or someone who is careless about his/her activities online.

You must shut down any of your accounts that have been comprised.

Take on contract work

There are some careers that need money to grow and get the best out of them, e.g. to take relevant courses or to obtain important certifications.

If what you are doing is not fetching you enough money to pay your bills and have reserve to invest in your career, then you have to consider having a part time job or a contract work on the side.

Contract jobs are jobs that are done for a specific period of time, or jobs that are target oriented.

You get paid at the end of the job.

An example of a contract work is freelancing job. If you have the time to brainstorm about some ideas, then taking on freelancing job will not be a bad idea.

The good aspect of contract job is that it is dependent on how much time and effort you are ready to supply.

You are not tied by anything, and also you can pull out at any time you feel like.

So, funds from contract jobs could be used to move your career forward.

Conclusion

Careers are in different industries and in different stages. It is not really difficult to start a career, but getting ahead in your career could be the biggest challenge you might face.

This page has provided valuation information you can apply in developing and having a successful career.