Blog - Page 22 of 22 - The Career Success Doctor

Why You Should Keep Your Knowledge Up-to-Date

When you are applying for a new job, it’s really important that you can demonstrate that you keep your knowledge up-to-date. With some professions, it’s mandatory. Most professional bodies make annual training a condition of membership, and offer a range of courses to help you.

But what if you aren’t a member of a professional membership organisation? Why should you bother? Isn’t that your employer’s responsibility?

Well, firstly, it’s your employer’s responsibility to ensure you have the knowledge you need to do the job you are doing. Usually they do this by sending you on training courses, or giving you a mentor, or getting you to work alongside someone who knows what they are doing. They may have you do the work, which someone then checks until they feel you are fully competent (often known as ‘on-the-job training’). It’s in the employer’s interests that you have the skills and knowledge you need in order to do your job well.

Many employers understand the benefit of expanding the skills and knowledge of their employees, so they will invest in career development, whether it’s sending you on a training course, or paying for a course you want to go on, or allowing you to ‘shadow’ someone doing a more senior job, or a different job from yours.

The problem comes when you want to get promoted, or to find a new job some where else, and you don’t have the skills and knowledge required. In the case of promotion within the organisation, your boss might be persuaded to provide the training you need. If you are looking outside the organisation, then it is down to you.

The most successful people tend to be those who are willing to pay for their own career development if they can’t get help from their employer. It’s one of the keys to landing your dream job or dream career. They may pay with time – for instance taking on a volunteer role where they can develop a missing skill-set. One client of mine wanted to develop her finance skills, so, after reading some books on the subject, she volunteered to help the treasurer at her local church to give her some practical experience.

Other people pay with money. For example, when I knew I wanted to have my own business, I took holiday and paid for my own NLP training. It wasn’t cheap, but it certainly paid off over the long term. Most of my private clients pay for coaching out of their own pocket, because they understand how it can help them get where they want to be more quickly.

If you’re about to go job-hunting, look at the adverts to see what skills and knowledge employers are wanting in the field you are interested in. Take some time to assess yourself honestly. If you haven’t got the right mix of skills and knowledge, or they are out-of-date, think about how you can upgrade them. Be willing to be really creative in thinking about how you can get access to the training and/or experience you need.

The Value of Practice

Written by The Career Success Doctor

As a kid, words like ‘practice’ and ‘dedication’ left me cold, but I have recently I have re-discovered the value of practice, focus and dedication.

One of my hobbies is playing the ‘cello in folk sessions. A friend had a gig and asked me if I would like to join. The event is uniquely British, it’s called the Tweed Run, and you can see the general photos as well as a wee photie of the band. I didn’t know most of the tunes, so I had to sit down and learn them in a fairly short space of time (at least the shape of the tunes, what with the ‘cello being a bass instrument).

This involved Practice – a lot of it in a short space of time. I nearly backed out, as my first attempts at doing anything with the 22 tunes were hideous to the ear. But I stuck with it, and actually practised, and it eventually I started to notice the difference. So did other people at other events. And because I’m now playing better than I have in years (I haven’t practised in years) I feel motivated to do MORE practice, and get better still.

When you’re working on finding a new job or career, there are somethings you can practise, and some you can’t. Writing application forms can be a fairly tedious job, but the more you do, the more practice you have, and the more you improve, particularly if you’ve got someone to give you feedback. Likewise interviews. If you have an interview coming up, write out a list of questions you might get asked and practise with a friend.

The trick with interview practice is this. Don’t try and learn it off by heart. Just practise coming over across as motivated, and interested in your listener. Think about what you can offer them, not what you want from them. Our thoughts drive our behaviour, so if, deep down inside you’re thinking ‘I really don’t want this job’, that’s probably what will come across. Attend some jobs interviews for jobs you don’t really want. They’re great for practicing. And you won’t need to feel disappointed if you never wanted it in the first place.

Does a shorter working week make for sustainability?

Written by The Career Success Doctor

There’s a lot of talk going on in UK just now about the shorter working week, and whether it might contribute to sustainability. It’s partly down to a report produced by the think-tank, nef (new economics foundation – trendy in lower letters!). The Independent Newspaper kindly boils the report down to half a page.

The general argument is that in the UK we work harder than many of our European colleagues. Not as hard as folks in the US, but hard. Harder than we were 30 years ago, apparently. The nef thinks that a move down to a 21-hour working week would be a Good Thing For The Planet. By earning less, we would consume less, which must be good for the planet.

In my role as an executive coach, I meet many high flying executives who work very long hours. I also meet some who don’t. Yet the ones who work shorter hours are just as ‘successful’ (depending on how you define success) as those who work longer hours.

Among successful executives, some work hard because they feel they ‘should’. The organisation expects it of them. Some work hard because they love what they do. And for some, work is a better alternative than going home to a lonely house/an angry partner/howling kids or some other unwanted alternative. And a few work hard because they or they families are rampant consumers.

My own take on this is that if people are loving what they do, then why shouldn’t they do it? The problems arise when people are forced to work long hours, or they think they should for fear of losing their job or of failing or of falling down the economic pan. For those who stay at work because it is better than the alternative, the brutal answer is ‘sort your life out’, because come retirement day there’s a risk life really will lose all meaning.

Tim Ferris’ excellent book ‘The Four Hour Working Week’ really turns the idea of the 40 hour working week on its head. Even if you don’t subscribe to his thinking, it’s worth a read to see what is possible.

Of course, it’s very easy to talk about the need to return to a shorter working week if you can still earn enough to feed your family. But even in London, where some of the richest people in the world hang out, there are a huge number of people who are living on the poverty line. Those who are working struggle to find anything that pays a living wage. Under 16 hours a week and you can claim income support ( of course, I’m grossly simplifying the rules of a complex system).

But there are plenty of people who have gone from poverty to riches, from working all their waking hours to a 16-20 hour week or even less. And a lot of them have done it by becoming internet marketers.