A successful career is made up of a number of factors — talent, ability to work, ability to negotiate with people and make bold decisions, good luck and much more.
Nevertheless, I am going to distinguish five main rules of success in a career. Follow them and be sure — you are doing the most important things for professional growth.
Rule No. 1: Do your own thing
Ideally, you should decide what kind of work gives you pleasure in your youth. However, there are a lot of examples in life when a specialist changed his profession at a sufficiently mature age and achieved considerable success in the new field.
Having chosen a specialty, in the first years of work a person usually understands that he or she is more interested in this field. When it comes to programming, the specialist selects the favorite programming languages and stack of technologies he likes to work the most efficiently.
To avoid bitter disappointments and professional burnout, think: do you do your job? Do you need to build a career in the IT field rapidly taking higher and higher positions or you feel much more interested to develop the professional and personal skills becoming recognized high level professional? High java programmer salary does not always bring happiness — sooner or later, you will think about higher things.
Rule No. 2: do a high-quality job
Although psychologists say that perfectionism is not a good character trait, it is a very useful quality for a career. Whatever you do, ensure the highest quality of your work. As banal as it may sound, but a good job is a key to promotion.
Do you build complex software products? Every step should be well planned to the smallest details. The deadlines must never be broken. Are you a project manager in the IT company? Your level of responsibility is even higher. Think about every detail — from the team meetings to the presentation of the final product to the client.
The results of your work will be the main driving force of your career. Get ready for an objective competition — in the vast majority of cases, the one who works more effectively and faster gets promoted. Do not ignore any detail and do not deprive yourself of future success.
Rule No. 3: set priorities
Sometimes it is not possible to do all the work perfectly. The situation is familiar to many people: there are some family problems, or you got sick — however, the boss is still waiting for the report. What can you do about it?
Calmly think about what is more important to you at the moment. Get extra points in the career race by staying in the office in the evening? Or spend time with your child or crush? There is no clear answer and there can be no answer. If, for example, the report is only an intermediate link in the work, it is possible to finish it in the morning. If the boss is expecting you to give the report right now, there can be good reasons to finish it immediately and sacrifice the private time.
Rule No. 4: learn to negotiate and make unpopular decisions
Career is always a relationship, the ability to negotiate with a variety of people. It is especially difficult to build relationships with subordinates who were equal colleagues yesterday. A young manager may be confused: he does not want to look like a despot, but at the same time he knows that some of his colleagues work less effectively than expected. What is the possible solution?
Of course, there can be a lot of options for solving such situations. You can talk to the colleague, explaining to him that walk it time is precious and the high-quality results are very important for the whole company. Also, there is an option to promote him more tasks so that he had no opportunities to do something useless. You can even fine him. In any case, you must understand that there can be situations when you should make unpopular decisions.
Making unpopular decisions in the interests of the company is a key component that is impossible to achieve a high position without. However, you should be guided by the law, simple rules of fairness and ethics. Only then will you become known not as a tyrant, but as an adequate specialist.
Rule No. 5: Be proud of what you’re doing
This rule is a direct consequence of the first rule. You should be fascinated by what you’re doing and be proud of the results — your own and the company as a whole. Do not think like “I’m doing so much for the company, my software products are of the highest quality. I do not have to try being better”. Such an approach will break the chances to achieve career goals.
It is very important to make everything possible to be a bad specialist and improve your knowledge. The professional growth of the core component of career growth. Do you have other thoughts to share? Please let me know — I will be glad to post them in the blog.
