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Career Advancement – Commentary

Hello this is A.J., welcome to the commentary for Career Advancement. Let’s talk about how to advance your career. Meaning, how to get better and better and better jobs throughout your life.

The first thing you need to do right now is identify the next position you want, your target, whatever job you’re in now, what do you want next? Too many people stay in their current job and don’t really think about what the next step is, they’re just focused on making money, paying the rent, all that. I understand they’re busy in their current job. But if you want to have a better job, if you want to make more money or have a position that you enjoy more that’s more fun, to work with more enjoyable, more positive people, to have more responsibility, to have a job that’s more interesting, more creative, to have more influence in the world. Whatever your idea of a better job is, you need to identify your next target that you might have, your super dream job.

Maybe that’s your next job, but maybe that will require many more years and you have several steps to get there. That’s okay, but you have to think about the path ahead, know where you want to go. If you don’t know where you want to go then you get stuck doing the same thing and you never go forward, you never improve. I understand this by the way, because for a long time in my life I was stuck working jobs I hated, for many, many years. For a while I didn’t even know what a better job would be. I didn’t have an idea what would be better.

I think they all suck, they’re all terrible, and eventually I figured out that I enjoyed teaching and then I figured out what kind of teaching job I wanted, not so much more money for me, but I wanted more freedom. So I realized okay, at my current job I’m stuck, I have to use these textbooks. They’re forcing me to use this method of teaching grammar and I’m not happy with this. I want a job where I have more freedom, where I can do anything I want in the classroom and teach my way.

So I had an image, a thought of what kind of position would be next, what’s the next place I wanted to be, what was my target position? You have to have that. You have to have an idea of what it is you want. It might be as simple as more money, but it might be something else.

You need to identify that first. So identify your target position. It might be in your current company where you’re working now. It might be at a different company whatever, just identify it.

• Next, you need to research that position.

You have your target position, you know what you want, now you need to do more research and learn more about it. For example, what skills are necessary for your next position, not the one you have now, the next one you want? What are the most important skills? If you want to be the head computer programmer then you better learn how to program a computer better.

Certain computer jobs require certain programming languages, a certain level of skill, so you need to find out what that is and develop that, develop those skills on your own.

There are also some general skills that are just valuable in almost any job. For example, communication skills, the ability to communicate clearly to people, to communicate effectively, to be persuasive when necessary.

Leadership skills… These are valuable in all jobs, in all positions, because your leadership skills are basically your influence skills. The more you can influence other people the more you can get done, the more effective you will be.

If you can only do things by yourself all the time you’re limited in what you can do, but if you have the power to lead other people, to inspire other people, to persuade other people, you become much more influential, much more productive, you can get much more done and in most companies, most positions they’re looking for people like that. They’re looking for people at the top or higher up that have good strong communication and leadership skills. So those are good skills for anyone to develop.

• Public speaking is another very valuable skill that can be useful in almost any job.

Again, because it increases your influence in your field. If you’re a scientist for example, maybe you do good work, but if you can’t communicate that to other people not many people will know about it. But, let’s say you’re a scientist who was a fantastic public speaker and you go to scientific conferences and give amazing presentations, and all the people who attend learn about you and your ideas and they are influenced by you. That is going to help your career tremendously.

So public speaking, communication, leadership, these are all powerful skills for any position.

So identify the skills and start working on them, it’s a never ending process, but find out what the skills are that you need for your next position, your dream position and work on them.

• The next thing you need to research and find out is if you have the necessary contacts.

Do you know the right people? For that next job you want, do you know the boss of the next job, the hiring manager? Do you know who they are? Do you even know their names?

Perhaps you identify one company or maybe five or six companies and positions. It’s not enough just to have a general idea of the position, you need to know exactly which company you would like to work at. You need to know exactly who the boss is of the exact position you want. Who will hire you? Who will interview you for that job?

You need to find out. Get on the phone or the Internet, do whatever you need to do to find the names of the people who do the hiring. You might also want to find the names of other people, maybe in your own company or in another, who do what you want to do. If you want to be a salesperson, then maybe you should find out who the best salespeople are in your company or in your industry and connect with them. Find a way to connect with them.

• Finally dress, which I mentioned before in the video.

How do people dress in your next position, the position you want, your dream job? How do the best, the high performers, the successful ones, how do they dress? What do they wear to work each day? You want to look like them, so however they dress imitate it. Obviously this will be different in different fields, in different industries and for different positions. A highly successful college professor is going to dress differently than a highly successful banker, who also will dress differently than a highly successful salesperson, who will also dress differently than a highly successful computer programmer. You have to do this research to find out and you want to look like, not your current position, you want to look like the next higher position, the one you want next.

Phase III, you need to connect, observe and interview. This is not job searching this is before job searching. This is pre-job searching. This is stuff you do before you’re ready to go to the next level. In this phase, in this time, you are not, not, not, not applying for a job. You are not going to ask anyone for a job; very important. Instead, what you’re going to do is connect with people and talk to them and learn from them. You’re just learning and connecting in this third phase, at this point.

What do you do? For example, you want to be a great salesperson so you did your research, you know who the best salespeople are in your company so what do you do? You call them up one by one or send them an email. You do not ask for a job you just say, I’m interested in becoming a salesperson or I am a salesperson and I’m interested in becoming better. I would love to take you to lunch and just talk to you for 30 minutes about your advice on how I can become a better salesperson, just to learn from them. That’s all. You’re not going to ask them for a job.

Some people might say no, but a lot of them will say yes. So then you just start going to these lunches. The same thing with the hiring managers, the hiring managers for the position you want, even if it’s in another company just say, I’m interested in this kind of work. I’m interested in what you do. I’m not looking for a job right now, but I would like to talk to you about your team and about your company just to learn more. Can I take you to lunch? Again, some might say no, but many will say yes and when you go to lunch do not give them a resume. Do not mention a job at all, just ask them questions about the same things you already researched.

What kind of skills are necessary?

What do you look for?

What is necessary to be a great performer in this kind of work?

How did you become such a greater performer? What did you do?

Ask them those kinds of questions, interview them, try to learn about how they think, try to learn about the skills that are necessary, you’re just getting information. You’re just connecting with them and getting information.

In some situations you can even offer to volunteer. You could become an intern or apply to be an intern, or you could say yeah I’m willing to volunteer just so I can learn a little more. So that’s possible, but I recommend doing that maybe after you meet them, like maybe the following week you could say hey, I’d love to volunteer. I’d love to just come by and observe for a day just to see what you do. Something like that where you’re just watching, observing and learning, again, not getting paid or asking for a job.

The next step is work to learn.

This is where you’re going again, from maybe into a volunteer position or maybe you’re going to take a lower job that’s connected to the one you want. Let me give you an example. I was out of school for a while with my journalism degree, undergraduate and I was making no money and working horrible, terrible jobs. I was quite upset. I realized that I wanted to do something different in my life. I wanted to help people. I wanted to counsel people. I had the idea of maybe becoming a social worker.

Now, that became my target, my target position that I wanted to become a social worker, and more specifically a counselor, working with people giving them advice and help so they can improve their lives. But I knew I had a journalism degree, I wasn’t ready yet so I needed to do some steps. I did all the research to find out what was necessary. I found out that I had to go back to school and get a Master’s degree. Then I realized I also needed to get some job experience. I needed to learn and make connections, because just to get into graduate school, just to go into the program, they wanted references. They wanted references that were connected to counseling or social work.

What did I do? I went and volunteered. I volunteered at a hospital in a psychiatric ward. I worked as a volunteer for no money. I just went and attended some of their therapy counseling sessions. I worked with a couple of the social workers at the hospital. I did anything they wanted. I would make copies. I would go to groups with them. I tried to help with the patients, playing games and talking to them if they needed someone to talk to. I learned a lot just by volunteering. I also made great connections, because the social workers at the hospital wrote reference letters for me. They helped my application. They helped me get into school, to get into graduate school.

So, I learned a lot and made a lot of great connections. I didn’t make any money, but in the long-term it helped me a lot with my future career as a social worker. Of course later I changed careers, but that’s another story.

Finally, when you are volunteering or in your own current job right now, even if you hate it, you have to learn to become proactive. So instead of complaining about your job right now, oh my job sucks. I don’t like it. I want a different job. That doesn’t help you at all. Instead, you have to focus on becoming more proactive on finding solutions to problems and improving things at your job. So at every job, no matter how low or high the job is, there are always problems.

There’s always difficulties. You can be valuable to your company by finding a way to solve some of the problems, even the little ones. So instead of being like everyone else and just complaining, look for solutions.

Make suggestions. Talk to your boss and say hey, I noticed we have this problem and I have an idea. What if we did this? If you have a good boss they’ll listen to you. If you have a bad boss they might always say no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But even if they always say no, it will still help your career, because if you do it in a friendly way. If you do it in a positive helpful way, your boss will realize you’re trying to help. You’re being more positive. You’re trying to make things better, you’re not like everybody else who just complains. Believe me that will help, even with a fairly bad boss, they will see you in a more positive way.

More importantly, you’re training yourself to be a problem solver and that will ultimately, in the end, help your career tremendously. Even if your current job sucks and is terrible, even if your current boss is horrible, by becoming a different person, a problem solver, you will be ready for a much better position, maybe at a different company, but still you’ll be ready.

Of course again, dress the part. This is a phrase in English, dress the part. It means if you want a certain part, a certain job, a certain role, you need to look like you belong there. If you want to be a top salesperson selling luxury cars, selling Ferrari’s, you’re not going to wear jeans and a t-shirt to work. People who buy Ferrari’s they expect the salesperson to be dressed very nice. You’re going to wear very nice suits.

Let’s say you’re working at a car dealership, a store that sells cars but let’s say you’re just the janitor. You clean the toilets that’s all you do. You clean the toilets, the floors but your dream is to be a great salesperson. Your dream is to not be a janitor anymore, but to instead become good at selling. You’re gonna to do everything we mentioned. You’re gonna have to get selling skills. You’re gonna have to learn how to do it, but you also need to look the part. As a janitor cleaning the floor, maybe you can’t wear a super expensive suit to work. Maybe that would be a little too much because you’re cleaning toilets, but you can still look better than most janitors do.

Instead of wearing jeans wear some nice dark pants, nice black slacks that are not quite a suit but they still look a little nicer. Wear a nice clean shirt with a collar. Look like you’re a step above the normal janitors. Stand out in a positive way. Look more like the position you want to be, the person you want to be. That will make a big difference. You could even do this. You could even wear a suit in that situation, in that example, wear a suit to work but bring a change of clothes in a bag, so that when you come to work everybody sees you in this nice suit. You say hello, you’re very positive and then you go to the bathroom and change into your janitor work clothes, do your work and when you finish your work as a janitor you put the suit back on, say goodbye to everybody and go home.

You don’t have to tell them why you’re doing it, but they will start to think of you differently.

Maybe they’ll wonder why you have a suit on. Why is he doing this? Maybe he’s going out to do something? If they ask you can tell them, I want to be a salesperson and I believe part of that is looking the part and being comfortable looking like a top salesperson, so I wear this suit in the mornings and evenings just to remind myself of what I want to become. And to get comfortable dressing like this, so when the time comes for me to be a salesperson I’ll feel ready.

Believe me they will respect that. You will get great positive attention by that. You gotta be willing to do these kinds of things.

In career advancement there isn’t an element of being bold, of being different. You don’t become better. You don’t rise to the top by being just like everyone else. You have to have the courage, boldness and strength to do things differently. Maybe to be seen as a little strange or weird, but in a positive way. It’s those slightly crazy people who have amazing success. Steve Jobs was a little crazy. There were parts of his personality that were a little bit crazy, a little too much, but it made him great and it will make you great too.

So that’s the thing I’m going to leave you with, is to be bold in your career, to take chances.

Take chances to be better, to stand out, even if it’s a little bit crazy. Sometimes it won’t work, but most of the time it will. Then you will have the job and career of your dreams that makes you happy and that’s important in life. Some people say it doesn’t matter, but it matters. In life you spend a lot of hours at work. That’s a lot of your life and if you hate it or if it’s not that great then you’re wasting a whole lot of your life. It’s important that all that time you’re spending be something that makes you feel great, that makes you feel happy, that makes you feel alive, something you love, something that inspires you; maybe not right now but you can get there.

Follow these steps I just told you. Good luck to you. Please share your success with me. Tell me your success stories. Get on Twitter, my Twitter is @AJHoge. Send me a message about your success or do it in the VIP forums or VIP Ning site. Tell me, tell us, all of us, share your success stories so we can create this very positive community so that we all get better, we all get happier, we all have more success.

See you next time. Bye for now.