5 Top Tips towards your Dream Career in under 5 minutes…

Tip #1 Work for a Manager, not a Company.

Managers are the single most important success factor in your entire career. Companies themselves don’t build you, managers do. If you click with yours, discussions are easy where you can voice your opinions, concerns, ideas to improve business or let them know you’re up for taking the next step to push your career forward.⁠ This may seem obvious at first but a lot of people forget that their bosses aren’t just there to give them orders; they also have a wealth of knowledge in the industry that you could do well to learn from. They should become one of your trusted mentors. Bottom line is; make sure you click with yours!

Tip #2: Work like you already got the promotion.

So you’ve all heard this before, but let’s explain how to actually do this.⁠

The key question to ask yourself here is; are you just meeting the goals expected for your pay grade or are you doing more? If so, how much more? Does the extra work you’re doing actually equate to any increased value for your team?

Okay, so what if you’ve realised now that you aren’t giving as much value as you would like? Well, be as committed, flexible and driven as the person above you. Observe them, what are they doing that you are not doing at present? What are your strategies compared to theirs?

Don’t be afraid to show that you’re highly motivated to move up to the next level.

 

Tip #3: Decide How important money is for you.⁠

Everyone wants to earn well. But ask yourself this question, how prepared are you, really, to sacrifice the other things in your life for success at work?⁠ ⁠ Does success mean only financial reward, or other things too?⁠ ⁠

How prepared are you to sacrifice time with family & friends for the sake of your career? The important people in our lives might not always want to be second place to our career.

It is a fact that more creative jobs tend to be lower paid, is because people enjoy them more, they are much more competitive to gain entry into. There is also less direct financial consequence – so less stress attached to these kind of roles. If you want to be more creative for example, it is likely that you will earn less, but if this makes you happier, does that make it the right path for you?

Being able to clearly see what you want for yourself will focus your career actions to become aligned with your goal; distractions will become obvious and easy to eliminate.

It’s common for people to have a big dream or “vision” of their future life, but extremely rare for us to actually match the level of commitment to our ambitions. Commitment is however the number One critical factor in achieving success.

 

Tip #4: Do a Job that plays to your natural abilities.⁠

“Most people think they know what they are good at. They are usually wrong.” – Peter Drucker

In our experience at Funds Talent is that this is sadly true. The primary and secondary education systems in most countries educate everyone to a similar level in a broad range of subjects. They fail to focus on discovering and nurturing your innate talents. Finding “a financially stable career” is the main goal set out for us from an early age. Then when we arrive at our first job (and in the ones to follow), the focus is on skill building and the specific training needed for the role. Most of the time, our innate talents remain with us; but we do not use them.

You can become skilled in something for which you have no innate talent, but chances are, you won’t be happy. Intelligent, highly-motivated people regularly accomplish success in highly sought-after careers (law, finance, medicine, etc) for which they may have little innate ability for; but they might not be happy or satisfied with their careers.

If you are in a role where your strong talents are not used, you may end up feeling frustrated, bored or over-worked; simply because you’re relying on skills you’ve learned that don’t aligned with your natural talents. You need to work a role that fits your hard-wiring, not one that runs against it.

You can start by understanding what your natural skills are. In order to find these, look at what you like, and where you know you are good at problem solving. They are the best clues. Use the Gallop Strengths finder book, that’s a great start, but there are many other similar strengths support books out there. We wish you all the best!

 

Tip #5: Be humble. Remember that everyone starts at the bottom, knowing little.

No one expects you to enter a new role knowing everything; in every company work flows slightly differently. Each company has its own core values, goals, with its “personality” and work culture. Working things out, well, it’s all part of the journey. Bing humble at work usually means;

• acknowledging that you do not have all the answers right now, but will “look into it and get back” to people
• not being shy or too proud to ask questions or for help
• listening before you speak and not brushing other’s opinions off when you want to present your own
• being kind and thankful to others (especially when they help you⁠)
• being a true collaborator/team player; not having to boast all the time about your contributions to the team, but giving credit to whom credit is due.

Sounds complicated, but totally worth the journey. Good luck!