Career Management Tips to Optimize Your Executive Career:

If you are sitting comfortably in an executive-level position thinking that career management is a thing of your past, you may be making a terrible mistake. While you may be comfortable right now,  that could evolve over time, and, as CEO of your career, if you do not make career management a priority now, it may be a costly mistake down the road.

Focus on Learning

In your current position, you may be working within one department, and that is your expertise. However, it is helpful and beneficial to learn as much as you can about the other departments, how they work and how you can add value. This knowledge can lead to a promotion within the organization you are currently in, or it can lead to broader career opportunities.

Network

Never underestimate the power of networking. Who you know is just as important as what you know in an age where hiring managers seek references from their trusted circle before a position is even posted. Professional networking often leads to opportunities that you may not have thought to seek out. Therefore, even for someone who is comfortable in their current position, networking should always be a priority.

Build Your Personal Brand

Every day is a perfect opportunity to build your personal brand and establish yourself as an industry expert. Don`t avoid promoting your brand simply because you feel secure right now. You have valuable working knowledge and experience that would prove beneficial to those who are seeking advancement in their own careers. Right now, you do not have the pressure of a job search, so you can add value and expertise to your networking circles. Share posts on social media, comment on the posts of others or write an article on LinkedIn. Then, if the time should come where you are in search of a new opportunity, you have a well-established personal brand that will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

Assess Your Values

Often, as executives are in the thick of climbing the corporate ladder, they forget to stop to assess their values. Your career is important, but so is your personal happiness; therefore, at some point, you may find that your current position no longer feels right. You may find that now is the time to make a change or take a chance. If you discover this is true in your life, it is much easier to make that change when you have consistently taken the time to invest in career management.

You have made it through the first stages of hiring. Now, you are facing one of the most stressful and anxiety-producing parts of the process: The Job Interview!

You will undoubtedly feel some nerves but utilizing these tips to keep your cool will leave a great first impression and increase your chances of landing the job you want.

Do Your Homework

While interviews are stressful and you are bound to feel some nerves, it is just as important a step for you as it is for the company with which you are interviewing. Extensively researching the company gives you the opportunity to get a feel for whether or not it will be a good fit for you. Use your research to prepare some company-specific questions prior to your interview. By doing so, not only will you show you are prepared but you will also give the impression that you have a genuine interest in the company.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Review your resume. Keep your accomplishments fresh in your mind. Pump yourself up on the way to the interview. Practice introducing yourself, your elevator pitch, and your answers to common behavioural interview questions.

Spend time practicing in front of the mirror to ensure your body language is calm, cool, and collected. Take the time to perfect your handshake with a friend or family member. The more you practice, the better prepared you will feel which will help keep your anxiety under control.

Always Dress Professionally

Dress in professional business attire and make sure you’re well-groomed. Even if you are interviewing with a company known for having a casual environment, make it a point to look polished and professional for your interview.

Be Confident

Remember you are making a first impression, so it is imperative to present yourself with confidence. Be mindful of your body language as it says just as much about you as your words and accomplishments do. Make sure you make eye contact, have a confident handshake, demonstrate good posture, avoid fidgeting, and keep your answers and movements slow and steady.

Be Yourself

While the interviewers are determining if you are a good fit for their company, you should also take the time to assess whether the company is a good fit for you. Sometimes it is not, and that is okay. If you are not authentic, you could end up with a job in which you are miserable. Therefore, it is imperative that you are true to yourself to ensure the position is the perfect fit.

Following these tips allows your accomplishments and the value you will bring to the company to shine, and you will make a great first impression.

1. Assemble a plan. Create one that takes you year-by-year to accomplish career growth at a speed that makes sense to you. Your career management is in YOUR hands, not your employer’s. Start today!
2. Be open about your goals. Your manager and other mentors can’t pave the way for your career growth unless they know what you are aiming to achieve. Let them in on both the long-term CEO goal and the short-term goals.
3. Connect with people who can help your career. Take your manager out to lunch, or arrange coffee with the head of the department you’d like to work for next. Network within your company as well as within your industry. Be sure to offer value in return!
4. Ditch your boxes and envelopes. Think outside the box for creative problem-solving, and push the envelope aside and force yourself to learn and grow beyond what’s comfortable and easy. Real growth of any kind is uncomfortable.
5. Expect to hit the wall. No one has a straight path to success. There may be rough spots, sacrifices, and difficulties along the way. You can get to your goals if you push through and keep working.
6. Find mentors. You can’t grow your career alone, you need teachers, mentors, and trailblazers. Grow your network garden to include people you admire in positions you aspire to earn.
7. Give back. Take some time to volunteer. That can, in turn, give you opportunities to sit on non-profit Boards someday…which is the perfect way to start at the Board level.
8. Help others. Add value to your network of work relationships and be the mentor you needed when you first began. It’s a start on building a legacy leadership.
9. Invest in your attitude. Stay positive, look for the silver lining, and seek the sunny side of every situation. Doom and gloom win no friends and influence everyone to avoid you…and hiring influencers don’t hire negativity. Go positive!
10. Just checking. No career proceeds in a straight line, so take time to check where you’ve come and where you’ve been, and adjust that career plan once in a while. Make sure the plan still fits the leader you are becoming.
11. Keep going. Even if you fail or get knocked down, get back on your feet and ready to work. Layoffs, downsizing, and pink slips happen to the best of us: The trick is to use what you’ve learned to do even better work next time.
12. Listen to your mentors, learn from your connections, always be open to change and improvement. Try what they suggest and keep the tools that fit you, discarding those that don’t.
13. Make a difference. If your goal is to make a contribution and improve every organization and every project you join, the higher-ups will notice.

 

Over the years, I’ve offered great advice on how to prepare for an interview, talk to recruiters, prepare your resume, grow your network, polish your branding, and how to land a job you’ll love. The effort doesn’t stop there, though.

Your job, reputation, and career need some basic effort to maintain and grow them…and there are some serious mistakes that can not only end your current job, but can put a dent in your career plans, too. Here’s a few of the worst mistakes and what you can do to avoid them!

Personal conflict. Allowing grudges, personal drama, or personality conflict to affect your work is a huge mistake. Is trouble brewing? Make the effort to resolve conflict, or at least rise above it. It won’t go unnoticed by your leadership, as the ability to collaborate effectively is a prized skill the higher you go.

Distance from management. If you’ve always felt more comfortable with your colleagues, and left some distance between you and your boss, now is the time to close that gap. You don’t need to grab a beer after work with your boss, but you should be comfortable having a conversation and he or she should know you as a person, not just an employee. Cultivate a relationship with your manager, and make the effort to be known to their managers, too. Your superiors are important tools for guiding and growing your career, and navigating on-the-job issues. Strengthen those connections so they’re ready when you need them.

Disrespect. I cannot put it more simply than this: No one wants to work with a jerk. You can be an industry expert, but if no one wants to work or have a conversation with you, you’re likely to lose your job and have difficulty overcoming an unpleasant reputation. Invite other solutions, you may learn something new. Invite collaboration, and support your colleagues by teaching, mentoring, and working with them. Announcing a mistake or mocking a poor solution puts the brakes on innovation. However, adding your expertise in a respectful, supportive way is always welcome and encourages everyone’s efforts.

Boundaries. It’s fine to make friends at work, but never mix romance or bad habits with work friends. Do the Pros and Cons of mixing the intensely personal with the professional: We’ve all heard stories of great marriages that began at work that would go in the “Pro” column, but for every perfect match there are dozens (if not hundreds) of break-up stories or harassment lawsuits in the “Cons” column. It’s just bad form to mix the private with the professional. And if you have bad habits (drinking to excess, recreational drugs) do not indulge around work friends or at the company Christmas party.

Career management. Don’t leave your professional growth up to your boss. Take charge of your career and treat it like the most important job you have. This one won’t end your current job, but it can stagnate your career growth and leave you behind your professional peers…and cost you thousands, if not millions, in salary over a lifetime.

When you think of career management, do you think of job searches? That’s just one aspect of career management. As a Career Coach, Executive Career Coach, and Executive MBA Career Coach, I find myself advising my clients that they must manage their own careers or no one else will do it!

Career management is the act of guiding and growing your career. You’ll have different goals and priorities at different stages, but you’ll always need to set goals and identify the strategy for reaching those goals.

Career Goals

What is your ultimate goal?
You’ll need to ask yourself this question at least annually. Outside factors can cause radical shifts in both answers: An economic recession, the birth of a new baby, a sudden job loss, a new achievement or degree, there are many factors that can change your long-term and short-term goals. Don’t be afraid of changing your goals as your personal, financial, and work goals change.

Internal strategy: Where do you want to go in your current company? What skills and experience do you want to pursue here? This is the strategy for growing your career within the organization for which you work now.

External strategy: What skills and experience should you be gaining outside of your current job? This can be through adding an Executive MBA, volunteering on a non-profit Board, networking, or any other means of adding to your resume outside of work.

Values: Identify your core values and your career values. These will help shape your career choices. If you believe true success is entrepreneurial, that value will inform your ultimate goal and many of your external strategies, too. If you are passionate about working for companies with a social purpose, that will shape your career decisions, your networking, and guide many of your strategies. If you’re not sure what your career values are, take a look at a copy of your current resume. Run a line through all the skills and experience you have that no longer really interests or excites you. The items left on your list will show you what professional knowledge and experience you want to centre your career around. The intersection of those core values and career values can inform your career goals.

Personal Branding: Create an authentic personal brand around your core and career values, with an eye to your ultimate goals and your strategies. Then begin to network to grow your professional reputation.

A recent Wharton study, “Shifts and Ladder: Comparing the Role of Internal and External Mobility in Executive Careers” by Bidwell and Mollick, showed that the biggest gains, over the course of a career are made by internal career moves, and that external career moves don’t add up to long term gains in responsibility or earnings. This runs counter to what many career coaches and experts have been saying for years, that the only way to make a significant salary or responsibility leap is with an external career move, meaning taking a job with a new employer. So, with this game-changing information, how do you know when to stay with your current employer and when you should search for a new job at a different company?

First, identify your goals. Are you looking for more compensation for the same job, or are you restless and looking to increase your skillset, or are you ready to take your career to the next level of responsibility?

Compensation. Do you have a scarcity of benefits in your current job? Are you happy in your position, but you want compensation commensurate with your worth on the open market? It may be time to change employers. When you have stayed in the same job for 8 or more years, your “step raises” probably won’t have kept pace with your value in the job market. If you are very satisfied with where you are in your career, and you can see longevity in your current job description (no sign of your skills or your title becoming obsolete), then placing yourself back into the job market may be your best bet to meet your compensation goals.

Improved skills. Are you looking for an increase in your skillset? Do you want to learn more in order to ready yourself for a move up the ladder? Have you lacked a sense of challenge in your current position? If you are looking to improve or expand your skills, or you are looking for a lateral move to prepare you for greater responsibility in the long run, then your career goals may be best served by staying at your current organization and looking for an internal move. Your organization may value the investment you represent, and invest again in your desire to increase in value. The Wharton study speaks to this, when one of the authors concludes that internal moves are more productive for employees because an organization which already knows your value and work ethic is more likely to take a risk and give you new or greater responsibilities, while a new employer is likely to be more interested in giving you the same job albeit with a greater salary.

Greater responsibility. If you’re looking to move into management, to increase your responsibilities, or take a major step up the career ladder, you’ll want to try to make an internal move, for much the same reason as the candidate wanting to broaden their skillset. Your current, happy employer is much more likely to take a risk and give you increases in responsibilities because they have seen you succeed in your current position.

Then, look objectively at your current organization. Does your company promote from within? Do they actively encourage adding new skills, growing your career and your value as an employee? If they do, your best bet for increasing skills and responsibility are probably internal rather than external. You may also have better luck negotiating a raise to meet current market value at a company like this. However, if your company is more conservative in its approach and doesn’t often promote from within or is rigid in adherence to their formula for raises, your best bet for an increase in salary, skills, or responsibility is to make an external move.

External factors. When and if you choose to make an external move, be sure to choose a company that does promote from within and encourage growth in employees, because the results of the Wharton study do show that internal moves are better, long term, for the growth of your career and your salary. During your job search, research potential employers, and ask questions about promotion from within during your interviews. Make opportunity for internal moves a must-have when shopping for your next employer.

It is YOUR responsibility to manage and grow your own career, not your employer’s. Identify and set goals for yourself and your career, and do some research to see if your goals can be met internally, or whether it is time to polish your resume, increase your networking, and enter the job market once again.

Are you an with a wealth of experience, looking for a new challenge? Interim Management might be a great fit for you. Interim Management can be a vital resource for an organization looking to implement big changes, strengthen an existing team with outside expertise, meet a critical goal, guide a significant restructuring effort, or fill an unexpected gap in leadership. Interim Managers are skilled, qualified, and practical executives with a vast and varied array of experience. If you are flexible, willing to travel, and have experience fighting fires and conquering the mountains in your industry, this may be the job for you. Here are a few of the pros and cons involved in a career as an Interim Manager.

Pros

• Opportunity to travel. Interim Management positions are available all over the globe.
• Challenges galore. These positions often have tight deadlines, involve integrating changes to established systems and cultures, and involve organizations in flux.
• Those challenges may be in your wheelhouse, but chances are, you’ll be learning more as you go, and gathering new experience and knowledge with each position.
• You’re able to focus on discrete goals and leave the everyday chores and politics to others.
• There is quite a bit of freedom involved in being the outsider and the firefighter, you aren’t weighed down with concern about the long term.
• Great for networking, these positions continue to polish and improve your personal brand as you go, as your contact list expands!
• Compensation can be very rewarding for these positions.

Cons

• Working in different cultures and languages. It can be stressful to be the “fish out of water”.
• Challenges can be exhilarating, but these positions involve high levels of stress much of the time. If you don’t love pressure, this may not be the right career for you.
• You’re only as good as your last success. These positions are given to those with great reputations, and a misstep can be quite damaging. That knowledge adds to the pressure.
• Fast paced, and finite, you’ll rarely have time to settle in and build a legacy.
• Switching from company to company, culture to culture, and working with teams experiencing anxiety and tension requires a level of detachment and pragmatism that can be difficult to maintain.
• There will be dry spells, when little work is available. You have to be financially secure to be able to afford riding out the famine in this feast-or-famine field.

Millennials are entering the workforce in record numbers, so managing and hiring this generation has been a hot topic with executives and recruiters alike. Knowing what’s important to this young group allows organizations to recruit, hire, and manage them effectively. It also gives all of us an idea of what changes may be coming in the future as recruiting and hiring practices begin to accommodate those preferences.

Korn Ferry Futurestep Millennial Survey is a great tool to see Millennial workplace preferences. It’s valuable information both as an executive job seeker and as someone building a career in an ever-changing business landscape. 76% of organizations polled said they are changing to meet Millennial needs, which means your next employer may have already put these changes into place this summer. Other organizations are focusing on how the generations interact and work with each other. The survey gives some valuable insight into each of these questions.

Here are 6 surprising hints into the Millennial mindset:

1. Work with meaning trumps salary. Buying into a company’s vision and mission is more important to this group than income.
2. Close to home. They value family connections and are less willing to move far from their roots than previous generations.
3. Work/life balance. While less willing to work a regular schedule of long hours, this group will push themselves for the team if they feel their contribution is valued.
4. Feedback hunger. Millennials crave feedback, and retention rates are improved by offering frequent assessments and development plans. They’re not just looking for kudos, but seek guidance on how to effectively grow their careers within an organization.
5. A clear career path within the organization is important. This fact seems to go hand-in-hand with the preference for frequent feedback.
6. Titles matter. Not since the Boomers has a generation been as focused on the ladder to success. They’re happier knowing where they stand and what they need to do to move up, and they’re willing to work hard for it.

In the competitive business world, you don’t often hear the word “virtue”, but I use it here to describe qualities that can make you more effective and productive when it comes to managing and growing your career. Being kind can help you get ahead.

Kindness is a great example of a business virtue. Many business leaders today make a point of treating everyone from the janitor to the CEO with kindness. It costs nothing, but can reap great rewards in the future. As a business virtue, it means choosing to be generous with your time, knowledge, and skills whenever you can.

Examples of kindness include: Giving much-needed advice to a colleague who is struggling, passing along information about an open position, or speaking warmly of a prior employer. All of these can come back to benefit you later. The opposite of kindness can certainly bite you! We’ve all heard the stories of candidates or new-hires who cut someone off in the parking lot or snapped at someone on the elevator, only to discover they’ve been unpleasant to important decision-makers. Unkindness carries a real risk.

One of the best places to be kind is during networking: Always be ready to offer a solution or connection to someone in need. They’ll be far more likely to think of you the next time they learn of an open position or when it comes to giving you an unexpected glowing reference!

Another appropriate time for kindness is during the interview process. Organizations commonly hold all-day job interviews with multiple teams, and when candidates are reviewed, even the receptionist may have input. Make sure you speak kindly of previous employers and colleagues. This lets interviewers know that someday when it comes time to leave their company, you are likely to speak well of them, too.

I use this virtue in my own business, to great effect. I offer free resume reviews and I do quite a few of them each month. This simple, kind offer has both increased my business and polished my reputation. Even those who use the information from the review but never become clients have returned the favour by offering referrals based on my positive interaction with them.

Kindness is a business virtue worth cultivating.