As July slips gently into August, that Back to School feeling begins to fill the air. Even if it is years since you have been in formal education, there is often still a combined sense of anticipation and trepidation at this time of year. In fact, for many people, September feels like more of a fresh start than January.
So whatever you have been doing this summer, why not jump on the Back to School bandwagon and determine to do a few things differently from September? Think of it as your own version of Back to School in terms of your career.
Here are five suggestions for ways to reboot your career this autumn.
Decide your career goals
The author Lewis Carroll famously said “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there”. And that is as true in terms of career as in any other aspect of life.
It’s all too easy to drift along from day to day without thinking too much about what you are doing or what you really want. Just go with the flow and see where it takes you. But if you feel it’s time to reboot your career, first you need to dedicate some time and effort thinking about your career goals, and where you want to be.
During this process it can be helpful to look ahead to different stages in your life. Where would you ideally see yourself being in 1, 5 or 10 years time? Whilst this may sound like a typical interview question, you now have the freedom to answer completely honestly and truthfully without trying to fit your answer into what you think the interviewer wants to hear.
If you find it difficult to gain clarity about your career goals, particularly longer term, at the very least you can start organising the process of helping you to decide them. It can be useful to start keeping a journal recording your thoughts about what you do and don’t want from a career, and how your current work situation both helps and hinders that. Get into the habit of reflecting on your work day, and identifying good and bad things about it, and what you would like to see change.
And if you think you may want a major career change at some point, the following four steps can help you develop those initial thoughts into a positive strategy for change.
Identify your niche
If you have a growing feeling that you are in the wrong job, it’s time to explore that further rather than ignoring it. And if you decide that you would like to make a complete career change at some time in the future, it’s possible to start making small steps towards that right away, even if the time is not yet right for the change itself.
A good way to start ordering your thoughts and identifying your preferences and strengths is to take a career aptitude test. There are many kinds of tests available and they can help you to work out what you do and don’t enjoy and give you a few pointers as to what kinds of jobs would suit you best.
One well known test used in industry is The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and there is a free online version of this known as the Jung Personality Types Test. The test focuses on the kind of personality you have and how it could potentially fit certain kinds of jobs.
So a valuable way to help you reboot your career this autumn is to think big in terms of your future career, and start trying to find your niche.
Find your tribe
Once you begin to identify the kind of career development you want to have over the next few months and years, start looking for your tribe.
Which are the companies that may have suitable job opportunities for you? Who are the business gurus and thought leaders that you feel drawn to? Where do you feel you might fit in? Who are your tribe?
To find answers to the above questions, take time to network as extensively as possible. Much can be done online but nothing beats face to face connections with the people that you think are going to be important to your future. So look for physical networking events, conferences, talks etc and put yourself out there.
Also start becoming familiar with companies where you think you would be happy working in future, and start interacting with them, for example, through their social media feeds. Also ask around to see if anyone you know works for the company or knows someone else who does and who may be able to help you get an insider’s view.
And if at any stage you want to be more proactive about working for a particular company, it can sometimes be worth approaching them directly rather than waiting for a job to be advertised. Whilst this can be a daunting prospect, sometimes you can get lucky and just be in the right place at the right time.
Mind the gaps
If you are working towards a career change, one of the things you can do now is to plan how you will fill in gaps in your knowledge and experience to get you ready for your change.
Even if you are thinking of going for a major career change sometime in future that will involve some kind of full time training programme, there are still likely to be skills and knowledge that you can start acquiring now in preparation.
Here are a few examples of how to start increasing skills now that can boost your future career change strategy:
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Personal skills
Most careers involve the same kind of core personal skills such as communication, interpersonal skills, problem-solving, and people management skills. You can improve these skills in various ways, including Open Learn’s free online course The Importance of Interpersonal Skills.
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Job-related skills
The employment market is evolving rapidly, and there is a lot of truth in the theory that many of today’s students are being prepared for jobs that don’t exist yet, using technologies that haven’t been invented, in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.
This is also relevant to anyone looking ahead to a career change. Look for the jobs that you are potentially interested in – and even new jobs similar to your current job – to see what skills they are requiring. Then make a plan to start acquiring those skills to bring yourself up to date.
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Technical skills
Technology is playing an ever-increasing role in most jobs, so any time you spend improving your technical skills is time well spent. For example you may want to learn more about coding, website content management systems (CMS), html, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems, spreadsheets, presentation software, image and video editing software, and many more.
You should be able to find a variety of online courses available in all these topics and more, for example at Free Courses for England or The National Careers Service.
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General skills
Learning new skills is always a good use of time, even if the skills are not directly relevant to your current or future career. For example if you have always wanted to learn another language, online providers such as Duolingo or Babbel have free courses available.
For more vocational topics, check out Reed UK for a wide range of courses, many of which are free. Topics include accounting and finance, business, marketing, office skills, admin and project management.
Even learning something that you may never use at work but have always wanted to do – for example a musical instrument, painting, dancing, a sport, cookery, photography, car maintenance – will keep your mind active and build your confidence, as well as being fun.
Bloom where you are planted
Another very important way to reboot your career this autumn is to increase the value of your contribution in your current job and company. Even if you are coming to the conclusion that you are ready for change, that is no excuse to switch off until that change happens. Quite the opposite! Your career-boosting strategy should be to be your very best where you are now, and make the most of every opportunity that presents itself.
Four particular things you can do are:
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Become super-organised
Taking time and effort to get organised at work will reap huge dividends. You will become the person who is the fount of all knowledge. Make it your business always to know what is happening, when, where and why. Find calendar, planning and project management systems that work for you so that you are always on top of everything and fully prepared. Become indispensable without being put upon. Your future work self will thank you.
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Do things without being asked
Most managers don’t like having to tell people what to do and feel frustrated that things don’t usually happen unless they do this. So delight your manager by not only doing everything that you would normally be expected to do but throwing in little extras too. If you notice a problem, or something that could be improved, don’t moan about it but find a way to fix it. Then you can report back both the issue and the solution for extra brownie points.
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Show leadership initiative
How often have you sat through a meeting which is a complete waste of everyone’s time? But no-one says or does anything about it, just sits there putting up with it.
So if a meeting is coming up, ask for an agenda in advance. If that is not forthcoming, circulate a suggested agenda of your own with desired outcomes from the meeting. At the meeting itself, try to steer back to those outcomes so that you become recognised as someone who gets things done.
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Play to your strengths
You can increase your value at work by knowing what you do best and making sure that you use that to its full potential. Personality and aptitude tests – such as mentioned earlier – could be of help here.
When there is a synergy between a significant business need and your best capability, you will get the chance to shine and everyone will benefit.
We hope that the above ideas are a helpful start in rebooting your career this autumn. For further career tips and business inspiration, particularly in the area of digital marketing, remember to check back here soon with Xcite Digital.