WomenCo. researches trends in career advancement to help you update your strategies for 2008.
Out: Impersonal Emails Addressed to Sir/Madam
In: Personal Contacts/ Referrals/Introductions
Today’s virtual communities have virtually obliterated the blind resume send, and replaced it with a much more effective personal contact or referred connections. Research shows that job seekers are more likely to get jobs through acquaintances than through close family and friends, so get networking to reduce the number of degrees of separation between you and your next power move.
Out: Job Definitions
In: Learning Agility
Learning agility can be explained as the ability to solve new problems with relative ease, and the knowledge of how to compensate for one’s own weaknesses to get the job done. In our fast-paced, rapidly changing work environment, people with fixed skills are less valued than those that can interpret the need, modify the response, and achieve the desired result. Hiring managers will increasingly seek to assess learning agility in interviews, so make sure to highlight areas in which you learned new skills in a short period of time and delivered on expectations (bonus if you exceeded expectations). Once you’ve sold the manager on your learning agility, negotiate wisely to ensure you are getting what you are worth.
Out: Doing It Yourself
In: Asking For Help
Career women are particularly bad at this either because we are hesitant to reveal what might be perceived as weaknesses or because we don’t want to expose our plans to others. These old notions of competition are obsolete in today’s world of competition. There is no point in building a network, or establishing your contact if you are incapable of fully leveraging them. Learn how to ask for help and give back as well.
Out: Paying for School
In: Scholarships
Any way you look at it, school is an investment: financially, temporally, and in its opportunity cost. However, given the direct correlation between level of education and pay, take advantage of the down time during the holidays to investigate the return on investment if you were to go back to school. If you decide that you do need to go to school, find a program that will suit your needs, and then learn what it takes to get a scholarship.
