Start the New Year with a Career Assessment
January 4, 2012
The New Year marks my two-year anniversary of working in the “real world.” Like many other young professionals, I too often focus more on day-to-day job demands as opposed to the big picture. So 2012 presents an opportunity to evaluate what I’ve done, and how I need to improve to continue my vocational growth.
Here’s how to get the most out of this kind of annual self-assessment:
Honesty rules. You’re not a kid out of school anymore, so it’s time to get a valid sense of your strengths and weaknesses. “Honest” is the key word. Nobody is awesome at everything, nor are they expected to be. But without a candid appraisal, you can’t move forward. There are two questions to ask here: “What have I done well? How can I improve?”
Get to the “why” behind the “what.” It’s not enough to know when you failed and when you succeeded. You must get to the driving factors behind these results. For junior PR/communications professionals, perhaps you sent out a couple press releases with a glaring errors and the client wasn’t pleased. Determine what caused the error to occur. Did you rush through the review without adequate proofing/factchecking? If so, then make the time to do so from now on. Come up with a check list of review requirements to perform before you press “send” on any release. Allow the discovery of “why” to form the foundation of best practices in the future. Similarly, when you’ve done well, examine why and come up with ways to repeat that success with multiple clients in different situations.
It’s all in the numbers. When assessing your progress, see if you can quantify your impact. (This serves an employee well during annual reviews, by the way.) But make sure you focus on numbers that speak to your value contribution. And, no, saying you clocked long hours doesn’t count. It’s not the time you put in, but what you did with it. Instead, track the numbers that matter to clients – such as the number of feature stories you placed because you were resourceful and determined. While you’re coming up with a statistical profile of your impact, you also should get a sense of the quality of what you’ve produced. How much of a difference did those feature stories make, for example, upon your client’s goals of gaining industry visibility?
Set goals that push – but don’t strain. Of course, it’s wise to come up with goals for the upcoming year. So set goals that are challenging, but within reach. Don’t make goals that are unattainable, such as becoming a VP in one year or getting 1,000 placements. This will only set you up for failure. But don’t take the easy way out either. Be honest about what you want to achieve and how you best feel you can reach those goals. Goals are a great way to quantifiably challenge yourself to get you to the next level.
You’re still in the early stages of your working life. There’s plenty of growth ahead, with the potential to reach places you’ve always hoped for. But you’ll get there faster if you take command of your own career. Launching 2012 with this kind of self-examination can get your year off to a great start.
@ktgrieco
Katie Grieco is a senior account coordinator for Welz & Weisel Communications.
