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Say you’re a financial auditor with a multinational organization. Would you want to stay in that role for the next 10 years? The same work, responsibilities and team with no career progression in sight?
We want to find jobs that help us learn and grow into better professionals. When you start working with an organization, you hope to advance in your career in a year or two. Career progression planning is critical if you want to realize your full potential. You can’t exactly wait for things to come to you, instead, you have to put in the work, make decisions and seek advice from experts, among other things.
Read on to discover the meaning and importance of a career progression plan for employees and professionals.
What Is Career Progression?
Career progression is ideally to progress in your career from a beginner or an entry-level employee to a senior, manager or even an executive position. It could also mean starting your own business or setting up a freelance service for your clients. The way you want to progress in your career is, of course, up to you. But making sure that you’re taking active steps to do this is what matters.
There’s no bad time to start your career progression planning. You can do it before you graduate; after you have a few years of experience or 10 years into your career. Everyone has different goals and aspirations. Comparing your progress with others is unfair to you and your hard work. So, take your time, talk to people and do what you feel will work best for your career success.
How To Progress In Your Career
We’ve discussed the meaning of career progression. Some career progression examples may be to climb the corporate ladder or transition into an entrepreneur to apply your skills, resources and experiences. Whatever the goal, there are some shared methods to help you avail of career progress opportunities.
Some organizations help create a career progression plan for employees if they want to retain top talent and drive high-performance work culture. This can include aspects of learning and development, rotational jobs or even on-the-job and off-the-job training.
As an individual, here’s what you can do for successful career progression planning:
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Plan Ahead To Use Every Opportunity
The best thing you can do for your career is to plan in advance. Whether it’s your first job or fifth, try to create actionable steps that you can check off your list. This gives you the chance to take stock of where you are, what needs to be done and how far you have to go. Eureka moments may not work when there are several others competing for similar opportunities.
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Refine Your Skills And Abilities
Use your time wisely to learn more skills or enhance what you already know. Today’s workplace is all about upskilling and reskilling. Just because you start working doesn’t have to mean you stop learning. Push yourself to learn things you’ve always wanted to or enroll for classes to develop a specialized skill set.
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Build Your Professional Network
As much as you’d like to make it all on your own, it’s quite helpful to have people support you in your endeavors. It can do more good than you’d think. You can go to any of the professional networking portals to connect with people in your dream industry. Reach out to them, ask them what it’s like and what you need to do to get started.
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Think About What You Want
Often overlooked, but critical nonetheless, truly take the time to think about what you want. Why you want certain things in your professional life may be a result of ‘because they’re doing it’. Trust your instincts and go after what you really want as a career.
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Seek Advice From Mentors And Seniors
Finally, seek advice from those you trust, especially in your professional space. Mentors or seniors at work can help you with questions like whether you should study or continue working. The trade-off between the two is best understood with more perspective.
Use what you have at your disposal to make informed decisions. The internet is your best teacher before you take proper steps. Do your research, work on your skills and become your best self with time, experience and patience. Career progression is a fun, fulfilling journey if you’re doing what you want to do with the best of intentions.
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Explore topics such as Asynchronous And Synchronous Learning, What Is A Habit, What Is The Pomodoro Technique and The Importance Of Time Management from Harappa Diaries to take charge of your personal and professional growth.
