Five Ways To Boost Your Career With A Full-Time Job

With new talent having advanced skills and innovative practices entering the market every day, you have no choice but to join the race,

lest you may fall behind. To top it all off, technological advancements, especially in the AI spectrum, of the 21^st century are a real threat to jobs everywhere.

All these things make it extremely important for professionals to transform themselves to grow in their fields. However, with full-time jobs, personal commitments, and responsibilities, it becomes difficult to take out time to work on yourself and your skills.

Fortunately, today’s new-age problems come hand in hand with new-age solutions, and there are some great ways to boost your career while working full-time.

Checkout Five Crucial Steps To Boost Your Career With A Full-Time Job

Here are our top recommendations that you can consider:

1. Improve your Profile

The best way to attain growth and success in your career is to improve your profile. There are several ways you can do this.

If you work in a technical field, consider devoting some time to research. It will increase your knowledge base and, over time, may also help you become an authority on the subject. By sharing the knowledge you acquire through research through lectures, podcasts, publications, etc., you can establish yourself as an expert in the subject.

However, if academia and research are not your forte, consider advancing your education. Start by looking for certifications being offered online that would bring value to your profile. Alternatively, you can also opt to enroll in an accelerated online masters program in your field of interest.

By gaining an additional qualification, you can significantly boost your profile and make yourself eligible for promotions and better opportunities.

2. Build Your Network

For professionals today, the importance of a strong network cannot be emphasized enough. By dedicating time to growing your network and building strong connections, you benefit in several ways, such as gaining prior knowledge of new roles in your field and having a think-tank to turn to when facing a problem at work.

There are many ways to build your network, the easiest of which is to use LinkedIn. For professionals, LinkedIn is a fantastic platform. Not many of us use the platform to connect with professionals and grow our network. To get started, join LinkedIn groups relevant to your field to connect with people in similar roles. You can also directly connect with people working in roles or companies you’re interested in and strike up a casual conversation.

If you think you present your best side in person, you can attend events such as seminars, talks, and corporate events to meet people and grow your professional network.

3. Talk to Your Manager

Many of us feel intimated when speaking to our managers about our career progression; however, you’ll be surprised to know that it is one of the best ways to boost your career.

Your manager is the one person who knows your expertise and shortcomings firsthand and is also aware of exactly what is required from you to succeed in your department. Hence, reaching out to them makes the most sense, provided that you share a healthy relationship with them. If not, however, you can always meet with another senior in your department to seek guidance.

Your superiors will most definitely appreciate the fact that you are asking for feedback, and they will note any changes you make after that. What this does is clarify what you need to do to progress in your company and help you set concrete goals for your career growth within the organization.

In this way, you can have a clear negotiating chip at your next review or appraisal meeting with your performance record to back it up.

4. Learn Irreplaceable Skills

An absolute must for professionals in all fields today is making their presence within the field indispensable and irreplaceable by technology.

Technological advancement has led to many innovations that can handle the entire workload of multiple people within a matter of minutes. It has been estimated that Artificial Intelligence will replace over 85 million human jobs by 2025. Given this situation, we must adapt ourselves to make use of technology for our benefit and acquire irreplaceable skills.

Regardless of how far science and technology advance, human intelligence and understanding cannot be completely replaced. Our soft skills cannot be reduced to a formula or computer software. Therefore, this is the time to build our critical thinking, emotional intelligence, leadership abilities, and other such skills that are human-centric and beyond the scope of technology and AI.

In addition to the skills you acquire, this will demonstrate your capacity to adapt and change with time, which will be extremely beneficial for your career growth.

5. Establish your Presence

Your progress within an organization depends on several factors, including your visibility within the organization.

If you have a full-time job, chances are you mostly interact with your department or manager and need more presence outside your inner work circle. You may think you’re fine this way, avoiding office politics and rivalries. However, being a fly on the wall has its disadvantages. You need to be seen or heard by the top management to stand out in their minds when decisions are made.

The solution to this is the establish your presence within an organization. There are many ways you can do that without disturbing your work responsibilities. Start by voicing your ideas and opinions during meetings. It will make you prominent. Additionally, you can volunteer to work on different projects with other departments or on company events, allowing you to interact with other teams and become a prominent face within the organization.

The efforts you put in to build a face value within the company will pay off at the time of your appraisals.

Final Words

If you want to boost your career, the above methods can help you without putting too much strain on your routine. Although finding the time to focus on career progression may seem hard with a full-time job, it is more important today than ever.

Remember, until you don’t change the input, the output is unlikely to be any different. Hence, where your career goes from here depends solely upon your efforts.

Read Also:

• What Is a Sales Consultant And What Are Their Job Roles?
• Why And How You Should Switch Careers At 50
• What Skills Should A CTO Have?