How you can manage your career…

You should manage your career as a continuous habit. – That’s the gist I got from a (re-)tweet by my friend Scott at DMN. I bring it into blogland where I can comment on it in more than 140 characters. Thanks, Scott, for bringing an excellent and relevant blog post to my attention!

Lance Haun’s blog Rehaul presents a great guest post by Steve Browne:

10 Career Management Tips In The Age Of Job Fear

Reasons why we don’t…

First, Steve gives some four reasons why we don’t manage our careers. What they have in common is that most of us seem to think of career management as occasional sprints – but not as a continuous habit.

I know this has been true for me: I would try and jumpstart my career management once I got really miserable in a job. Then it would be a lot of effort to make my past achievements presentable to others and to make my future vision clear to me. Which is, of course, only the first step…

Suggestions how we can…

Then Steve lists ten suggestions what we can do to manage our careers. They’re all great suggestions: They are actionable and real, so you’re not chasing some ideal self. At the same time, they are effective enough to rise above the level of mundane tasks. I especially like these three ideas:

4. Intentionally seek professional development

This is good for my job because it keeps my skills sharp and up to date. And it’s good for me because it lets me check whether I like and care about where I’m going.

6. Don’t be a lurker or a slug

By all means, stick your neck out! Do it in a responsible and respectful manner, but do it. It is called technical communication after all…

7. Volunteer and be broad in your scope

Anytime you volunteer, someone’s bound to learn something! And once you’ve volunteered for a bit, you’ve learned enough so you can avoid the topics that are too broad for you… 🙂

– Now, go over to Steve’s post and read it, if you haven’t already… 🙂

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