Recipe for career success

It is everybody’s aspiration to clock an imposing and steady progress in his or her career. People think that attaining such a dream is quite difficult and which calls for sneaky management. Much against the general view, there is no magic formula for being successful in one’s career.

Career success implies a steady progress and all tactics towards its attainment are a blend of preparation, efforts and rationale. Ten time-tested approaches to achieve it are:

·   Strive for professional improvement:  Learning is a continuous affair and your tombstone is your diploma. You need to empower yourself continuously; participate in training events, take up membership of professional clubs and read as part of own-time activity to stay connected with most recent developments as relevant to you.    

·   Take on additional work willingly:  You should try to be a useful member of your team and this implies sharing workload and shouldering additional responsibilities cheerfully. It will stand you in good stead if you participate in social service programmes, become a member of boards to identify new initiatives and volunteer for organizational assignments. You will thus be able to carve an image of being impelled and obliging; it will undoubtedly pay you rich dividends.

·   Display a down-to-business approach:  All business houses attach great importance to headship qualities. Whatever be your field of work and appointment, possession of leadership attributes are advantageous. You should be practical and positive in your overall disposition and make it a point that you stand out in the crowd.

·   Change and rediscover yourself:  All professionals endeavour to transform themselves by braving up to new contests and experiments. You need to rediscover yourself and in the process set higher standards every passing day. This makes it mandatory to persistently dare yourself to accomplish more than what you set out for. 

·   Have a matured outlook:  No workplace is devoid of politics; however, you need not to be manipulative. You should be discreet in your verbal communications and stay away from all altercations and arguments that have the potential of a controversy.  

·   Keep your eyes and ears about:  You should keep abreast of what is happening around you. This is possible if you do not absent yourself from routine meetings and various company activities. An image of a conscientious and productive worker will get tagged to your name. In addition, you should sell yourself diligently to ensure that you do not fail to benefit from all future prospects.

·   Be an organizational asset:  If you are an authority in your own field of work, people will look up to you as an asset and approach you for guidance.  You will be able to acquit yourself better in this context if you write for professional journals and do not miss out opportunities for delivering talks on topics that are your domain.  

·   Give your organization the maximum:  It is a hard that you get paid for working and for delivering results. Achieving your targets is fine, but employers invariably hope that your contributions should be more than what they spend on you. Therefore, you need to walk that extra mile.  

·   Don’t digress from principled standards:  Personal values related to adherence to timings of work and appointments; meticulousness; dependability; subtlety; zeal and zest; and constructive mind-set are always important and helpful. Your career will prove to be more successful if you do not deviate from your and organizational standards.

·   Enlarge your contact base:  The more number of people you know, the better it will be for you and your career. Besides people in your own company, you should also maintain contact with prominent persons elsewhere too. You should also identify suitable individuals on whom you can fall back for direction, if required.

Professional success is not something that can be purchased off the shelf. You need to harbour a coherent approach towards your work and this implies putting in sustained efforts after painstaking preparation. Remember that concentration of effort and the habit of working with a definite aim are two of the essential factors in success which are always found together. And one will always lead to the other.