Career Growth and Job Satisfaction Requires You to Stretch

I was recently talking with a group of professionals about career growth and a common theme emerged from what many in the group were doing to advance their career - getting better and better at doing the same thing. Some were taking classes, seeking advanced degrees, certifications, or even just working on their own to figure out how to do their job more effectively and efficiently. Everyone also had something else in common - they were frustrated that they weren't being chosen for promotions and that their salary was not where they would like it.

What everyone was missing were 2 key points:

1. Job Market Changing
2. Different Skills Needed for Advancement

Let's briefly look at each of these 2 key points to career advance and job satisfaction.

Job Market Changing

The skills being demanded by employers are always changing and as a result you must be continually learning in order to just keep pace. Employers are looking for staff who have certain skill sets, and their expectations are increasing. Increasingly employers are expecting their staff to have a full package of skills. Gone are the days of being a strong analyst and leaving the writing and presentations to someone else. You must have strong analytical skills, writing skills and presentation skills. Strong management and leadership skills are also important. Look to have strong networking, marketing and sales skills become increasing important as well. Now, if you're just starting out in your career, you won't need all of these skills, but the more you have and the more you demonstrate an interest in and aptitude for, the more likely you are to be hired or promoted.

Different Skills Needed for Advancement

There's a great book by Marshall Goldsmith that addresses this issue head on, What Got You Here Won't Get You There. The book actually covers a number of topics that if you use to change you habits can lead to greater success. For this discussion I just want to focus on the obvious title of the book. What you did successfully to get to your current position is different from what you need to do to get to the next position. To get promoted from an analyst to a manager you not only need to be a good analyst, you have to show that you can manage and lead. This is a harder to put into practice than it sounds because our entire education system has engrained us with success comes from gaining more and more expertise about one or a select few topics. If your job is in academia or fundamental research, this is fine. However, if your is doing anything else, you must purge yourself of these habitual view.

If you are looking to advance your career, get promoted or even just stay relevant in today's job market you must be developing new skills all of the time. Many of those skills you will need to develop will be outside of your comfort zone. You need to stretch, take risks and even fail!

What's holding you back from the next step in your career?