Every year I make a resolution to help executives with their New Year’s resolutions. Here’s my list of your New Year’s career resolutions, which I don’t have to do, but you do. I have a list of my own to worry about.
- Start your year with a personal assessment. Consider taking the CEO test by visiting ceopyramid.com/ceotest. Here, you can quickly determine the skills you need to work on in 2019.
- Test the market. Look at the job postings in your areas of interest to identify what’s in demand. If you have executive search connections, check in with them for skill trends.
- Determine to build two or three new, marketable skills. Write a training/development plan for each one. You might consider blockchain, agile leadership, AI/big data, and creating investor value as subjects.
- Update your LinkedIn profile with new skills, accomplishments, and the buzzwords employers and search firms might find interesting. Look at postings for jobs you might like and reverse engineer their buzzwords into your profile.
- Consider doing a short (2 – 4 page) white paper on the future of your job, profession, industry, or market (pick one). Remember, robots with artificial intelligence are targeting your job. Test your white paper on thought leaders.
- Train yourself for your boss’s job or other steps up the ladder that you find exciting. Do this, by the way, in a way that is not a threat to your current boss.
- Write down your career-building plans and communicate them with your mentors, confidants, and supporters. Meet with a reference/mentor once per quarter so you will have four current references altogether.
- Write a plan and quantitative targets for building your network. Devote five hours a month to networking activities above and beyond your job – college alumni associations, industry/professional associations, non-profits, community activities, helping other job seekers, etc.
- Expect setbacks, mid-course corrections, and other bumps in the road, but be persistent.
- If you are not in a position that develops your career, start looking now. Contact MDL Partners for help on this.
You will find that the time you devote to yourself and for yourself, (I suggest 5-10% of your work time) will accelerate your job satisfaction and your career.
Now I have to go work on the rest of my own New Year’s career resolutions.