Step 4: track and Quantify Your Achievements
As you learn new skills and broaden your experience, be results-driven and quantify
your accomplishments. As you progress in your career, your accomplishments and
results become more important than how you spent your time. For instance, consider
the difference in these two resume bullet points:
- Managed budget for LOB application team
- Grew LOB application user base by 50 percent while reducing per-user costs
by 16 percent
The first statement simply describes how you spent your time; the second recounts
what you actually accomplished. Both points might describe you, but the first
is much more effective and impressive than the second.
Step 5: Focus on Your Strengths
Often, I find that otherwise well-qualified individuals disqualify themselves
from a job after reading the job description and seeing a requirement or two
that they can't fulfill. For example, a job description for the position of
director of operations might state that applicants must have an MBA or experience
with a specific software package, neither of which you possess. But you shouldn't
assume that you'd never be considered a viable candidate for that job. Most
job descriptions are boilerplate templates that might—or might not—apply
exactly to the job you're interested in. Instead of being discouraged by deficits
in your experience, think about the assets that you'll bring to the position:
the skills, experience, and accomplishments that uniquely qualify you for the
role. Focus on those assets and play them up.
It's Who You Know and What You Know
I constantly see people make huge strides in their careers simply by thinking
ahead, identifying the job they really want, and planning their path to that
position. Along the way, they might debate the cliche"It isn't what you know,
but who you know." As is so often the case, the cliche is wrong: It's both who
you know and what you know. Follow this five-step strategy, and you'll come
out ahead in both areas. And don't forget, as you take that next step up the
career ladder, to advance your thinking and your planning another step into
the future.
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