There is a book on entrepreneurialism by Michael Gerber named, “The E-Myth.” In it, Gerber popularized the concept of: you have to work on your business, not just in your business. In my opinion, employees need to do the exact same thing for their career: work on your career, not just in your career.
Let me explain what this means. For example, if you were a copy-editor for a newsletter, your career task is copy-editing. This is working “in” your career. Working “on” your career would be doing things like: joining copy-editing groups, networking at copy-editing events, advancing your copy-editing skills, becoming a mentor to new copy-editors, streamlining the copy-editing process, etc.
Working on your career is the critical element to:
- Become paid what you are worth
- Advance to more challenging tasks
- Grow into getting more responsibility
- Access more career opportunities
Knowing some of the ways to work on your career, and taking the time to actually do them, is the best route for your career advancement. Being the best at a task does not mean you’ll ever get promoted to managing people doing that task. In fact, there are several elements that must occur before that can happen; such as supervisors knowing what you do, problems you have resolved, having an interest in becoming a supervisor, etc.
Working on your career also includes spending time each and every week to:
- Keep some kind of journal of your accomplishments for the week. This way, you’ll have it nearby to complete your employee review instead of trying to remember everything at the last minute.
- Think about what skills or experience is needed to advance upward. Do you need a lateral transfer to gain knowledge in another area?
- Determine who may assist your career and who may be detrimental to your career.
- Regularly meet with others in your career at different companies or industries. You’ll learn things that you’d never get exposed to and you’ll hear about career opportunities that you’d never have access to unless you do this.
- Certifications and advanced training to keep your skills up-to-date and to become more valuable to employers.
There is an endless list of ways that you can work on your career but most people do none of them and are then surprised when their career stalls or others with less skill pass them by. Please take time every week to find new ways to work on your career, find mentors, develop marketable skills, and keep your career moving upward and onward.