You have at least thought about your next opportunity, whether you enjoy your work or not. (And if you haven’t, well, here are a few valid reasons why you should.)
Problem is, a majority of us stop there. Overall, you can’t do anything to train for the next level if you don’t even know what the path is in your professional life.
Wrong. In fact, even though your goals are just a little fuzzy, there is so much you can do for positioning yourself for (or even stumble upon!) long-term opportunities, whatever they may be. Here are a few ideas:
1. Get Out There
Ask a lot of people how they got their new work, and you’ll always learn that it’s a matter of being in the right position at the right time—or finding the right people.
Either way, a perfect way to start planning for the future is to get yourself out of your normal routine and make new friends. If it’s through deliberate networking activities or volunteering and attending business gatherings, expanding your network is a vital step in planning for the next phase of your career. You’ll hear from other people’s career choices (which may give you more insight on what you’re going to do next)—and maybe even a possibility or two for yourself. It could be also helpful if you started reading articles or advice posts in the field that you consider getting into. To do that you can go visit JobsFuel and check out their blog section.
2. Build a resume
Your Resume explains your abilities and what keeps you special. It would help if you had a resume that promotes your talents and suits the job to stand out among other candidates.
A great resume:
- Takes employers’ and recruiters’ interest
- Sells your strongest talents and skills
- Shows how you’re fit for a position or project
- And most pertinently, it gets you a job interview!
For more info, check Novoresume that provides both free and paid resume templates, because whatever your budget might be, you can always take advantage of our resume builder. If you’re a creative advertiser searching for an outside-the-box imaginative resume prototype, or a banker looking for a more professional resume template, Novoresume has a template for you!
In reality, even though your ambitions are a little blurry, there are a lot you can do to prepare yourself for (and even come upon!) potential prospects, whatever they might be. Here are a couple of suggestions.
3. Build Expertise
Though you might not know exactly what you’re looking to do, you certainly have an indication of places in your current job that you’d never mind doing better in the future. Well, now is the ideal chance to build your skill, whether it be through formal training and qualification programs (note: review the company’s budget for employee job development) or more self-driven opportunities such as writing a blog or attending an online class. And suppose you don’t ultimately use this experience.
In that case, recruitment managers always prefer anyone that specializes in a specific field—assuming because you are a professional will handle anything a generalist can do, plus a couple.
4. Learn Something New
Are you involved in something entirely unrelated to your current position? That’s cool, too! And if you don’t have the secret side abilities you want to build (or even if you never do it again in the future), knowing something different will help you to stay nimble and committed.
Eventually, you don’t want to be the hard-to-train recruit who hasn’t had to learn anything from scratch in years!
So, pick up a tool, learn a new language, or try coding. At the very least, you’re going to stretch your brain—and your new talent may end up playing a bigger part in your career than you might imagine.
5. Push for Results
If your new role is relevant to what you’re going to do next or not, one aspect you certainly need to get away with is just a whole lot of good interviewing stories—stories that prove you’re a great leader, that you’re going above and above your job description, and that you get stuff accomplished.
So, start making notes about these stories and, better yet, start planning on some new ones. It could mean pressing for more projects or taking the opportunity to do something that isn’t really “your job.” Whatever you do, make sure that you can easily express your effect on several projects as you quit.
Nothing bores an investigator quicker than detailing your career duties, so do your future self a favor and start lining up those major accomplishments.
6. Figure Out Your Values
Whatever goes on with your career, you will appreciate the understanding of the ideas in your work. For example, it is an incremental challenge to see what kind of job makes you happier in the future – even without impacting the business or career that concerns you – because you know that you are worthy of attention but do not think about shift time. Start to write down what makes you smile at work and make you pull out your hair. It’s the best way to realize what you’re worth.
7. Say Yes!
And then, start saying yes, even though you don’t like it, too few chances come your way. You would help the local charity if you had the time? The next fundraiser you head to. That invitation to engage in your career discovery panel at your alma mater?? You’re there.
You can not necessarily see how your potential career applies to these little activities, but you never understand the possibilities that will bind you to your next work. Build your luck by saying yes to the items that are interesting to you. You can be helped by new opportunities to find out what you want and by new friends. What is there to lose?
So, what did you say? Do you not know what the next step is in your career? Turns out, that doesn’t matter. There are a ton of things that you could do to learn more, narrow down your choices, and meet people. It’s time to come forward, sort out things and continue to say yes.
Rhydian Choi 
Kim Marks