Education
How to Plan Your Career Growth
When you think of planning your career growth, you probably think about things like updating your resume, networking with potential employers, and looking for new opportunities. But what else can you do? If you know how to plan your career growth, you’ll gain an advantage when it’s time to take the next step in your career. You may consider horizontal growth. It’s about expanding your skill set. It can be adding new skills to your repertoire or expanding your skill set within your current role. Adding new skills might look like training, extra schooling, or getting coaching. Doing more in your current position might be finding a mentor, attending conferences, or reading.
The idea of career growth is exciting, but many people fail because it can be an overwhelming process. The first step to planning your career growth is understanding what kind of growth you are looking for. Are you looking only for your own professional development? If so, you need to focus on your professional growth and any education you may need to increase your skills. Are you looking only for a pay raise? If so, then you should focus on any education or training you may need to make your resume more appealing to employers. However, if you want to grow beyond your current role or the company, you need to focus on building your professional career and network.
Gain Transferable Knowledge
If you are an ambitious and goal-oriented individual, you might find yourself feeling stuck or stagnant in your career. Many professionals have a desire to advance their careers but lack the skills, knowledge, experience, confidence, or drive needed to succeed. The good news: you can take steps to overcome these feelings, gain more knowledge about your field and gain the skills you need to move up. For example, you may want to take a training course in a skill such as public speaking or public speaking coaching, learn a new skill, or take an online course related to the field you work in. By gaining more knowledge and skills, you can boost your confidence and show employers that you are eager to grow.
Whether you are looking to advance in your current job or you are looking to enter a new career, having transferable knowledge is invaluable. One key to career growth is your knowledge base. But where do you find knowledge? You gain knowledge from experience, which can take years to accrue. Gaining knowledge is also a key skill employers look for, so the more knowledge you have, your skill level is higher.
Gain transferrable knowledge is when someone learns and picks up new skills on the job. This can happen when an employee is promoted or asked to take on a new responsibility. Picking up new skills at work can boost your earning power, increase your potential for promotion, and help you get ahead in your job.
Gain Transferable Knowledge (GTK) is one of the career skills that every employee should have. It encompasses the attributes that allow employees to learn new skills while also using existing skills for personal growth and career advancement. GTK is acquired through training, mentoring, observation, and hands-on experience. It takes time, commitment, and dedication. Yet, gaining knowledge is the path to career growth. Career growth is something everyone wants. Everyone wants to progress and improve on their skills and qualifications.
As an employee, your role is to acquire knowledge and successfully transfer that knowledge to a product or process used in your organization. Knowledge transfer is how your organization uses existing knowledge in a work environment. The opportunity to transfer knowledge allows employees to expand their abilities, gain new skills and increase their value to an organization.
Use these steps to gain transferable knowledge for career growth:
- Determine what knowledge and behaviors you want your employees to gain through training.
- Choose a training program that makes sense for your team and aligns with your organizational goals.
- Determine how you’ll evaluate employees’ outcomes.
- Announce training.
- Implement training.
- Monitor and assess training.
- Celebrate employees’ successes.
You can also use transferable skills when you look into furthering your career. For instance, if you already work as a nurse in a hospital then you could take this one step further and retrain as a nurse practitioner. For this you will use your existing nursing skills and knowledge while also adding to your repertoire. Take a look at somewhere like Wilkes University if you do want to go further and climb the career ladder.
Grow Your Network.
Your network is at the heart of your career success. A strong network includes coworkers, clients and customers, professional contacts, and mentors. The key to success in building your network is knowing where to focus your time.
Networking is one of the most important tools for a career, and it’s even more vital when you’re a beginning professional. How do you network effectively? Start with the basics: be open to meeting new people, offer to help, and follow up! Use your network to help you find a new job, learn new skills, or learn where your city’s happiest hours are. Everyone starts out with a network, but your network can only flourish when you start putting time into it.
Networks are one of the most valuable resources at your professional disposal. While some people are naturally gifted with weaving a constellation of people together, the rest of us have to learn networking skills to succeed professionally. But networking isn’t just about swapping business cards and smiles. It’s about creating connections that have the potential to help your career.
Networking is among the key activities you must carry out to build your personal brand. We live in a society where people rely on social networks to make friendships, maintain relationships, or work opportunities. So, growing your network will help people connect with you and provide you with opportunities to unleash your talent and further your career growth.
Everyone’s heard of networking success, but knowing how to get started can be hard.
This post explains how to grow your network for career growth.
- Know Your Network
- Be Helpful
- Be Respectful
- Leverage Information
- Be Seen
- Be Active
- Participate
- Be Authentic
- Be Visible
