I’m presenting a strategic career-planning workshop for the assistants at Microsoft in San Francisco today. So I’ve been thinking a lot about making the shift from reactive to proactive when it comes to our careers. It’s easy to blame our companies or executives for not reaching the job title or pay scale we thought we’d have achieved by now. It’s equally easy to use excuses like, “My company doesn’t provide training for admins!” It’s simple to coast along in our careers and hope for the best. But if we don’t have a career plan, we aren’t going to end up where we ultimately want to be.
A strategic career plan looks at where you’ve been, where you are today, and where you want to go with your career. From there, you can map out your plan of attack for making it happen. What skills or resources do you need? What type of training is involved?
Would a professional certification help? Do you need a mentor or career coach? What books should you read? What networking activities should you consider?
Once you have the answers to those specific questions, you can break them down into actionable goals with targeted completion dates to keep yourself on track!
A career plan helps you focus throughout the year. You should revisit it monthly to ensure you’re staying on course. If you aren’t, you need to evaluate where you need help, as well as how to get it. Then you hold an annual review to set new goals for the year ahead. Plus, it’s a fantastic complement to your annual review process!
If you want to become more innovative in your career, you need to proudly take charge of it, and claim the title of CEO of your career. In this week’s feature article, I share some ideas to help you make this transition. We’re also sharing some advice on our Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages to assist you in this area.
As an administrative professional, you’re responsible for taking control of your career and elevating it to the next level. Creating your own strategic administrative career plan can help you do it! Download our free career planning templates to help you get started!
Supporting your administrative success,
Julie
P.S. This week is Business Continuity Awareness Week. So to help you be better prepared for the unexpected, we’re offering 25% off the entire line of All Things Admin procedures products today, Wednesday, May 17 through Friday, May 19. To take advantage of this special offer, please enter coupon code SAVE25 at checkout.
