The Need for Advancement
When employees talk about career advancement, it’s often financially-driven — get a higher position or a better job that has a bigger paycheck; moving up that corporate ladder. But advancing your career can provide more than just monetary benefits. Let’s say that you have a well-paying job that you genuinely enjoy doing, but years from now, it’s going to get repetitive, there’d be no challenges or new responsibilities to tackle (apart from a few changes in the operations), which can lead to career dissatisfaction and lack of motivation.
But if you’re able to advance your career either by being promoted or reassigned to a different position, you’ll be able to face newer challenges and responsibilities that can keep you motivated to work instead of just “slaving away” doing the same thing in the same position. So, how exactly can you advance your career?
Tip# 1 Results Over Time
You’ve probably heard about stories where newer employees end up getting promoted or have their careers advanced more quickly than those who are more tenured. Tenure (i.e., the number of years you’ve worked in that position) is always taken into consideration when companies choose employees to advance/promote, but it’s not enough. The quality of your work and your impact on the company/organization heavily outweighs tenure, which is why newer employees who are more proactive and provide tangible results are more likely to be preferred over employees who only provide satisfactory results. In other words, let your work speak for you, not your tenure.
Tip #2 Ask
Yes, it’s that simple. Ask your company or organization if there are any opportunities available to advance your career. Sometimes, it may be the case of you being too good at your job and provide good results, and the company/organization would want to keep it that way. However, by asking them, it would show that you’re ready for new and/or more challenging tasks. Some companies even have their advancement programs that you may not even know about that guide employees who are interested in furthering their careers within the company.
Tip #3 Improve Yourself
This can be very broad, which also gives you a lot of leeway. You can improve your interpersonal skills to make relationship and network building easier, improve your work productivity by learning new skills, or take it one step further by undergoing certified training or even going back to school and get your master’s degree. To expound on the latter, some companies even provide support for qualified employees who wish to further their education, so if you’re interested in business analytics masters programs (which the company can also greatly benefit from), you may want to check out any existing educational support programs in your company.
Tip #4 Build Relationships
Whether you like it or not, politics plays a huge role in advancement (more so in promotions). But this doesn’t mean that you have to resort to brown-nosing, or being the loudest one in the room. The best and most sincere way is by respecting others, help out whenever you can, be kind, and be that kind of person that every employee would want to work with.
The Takeaway
Even if you’re not after its monetary benefits, career advancement can help keep things fresh and prevents you from feeling more and more demotivated due to having a stagnant, albeit well-paying job. Although progress can be a bit difficult, these tips can go a long way in helping you advance your career.
