When it comes to progressing your career, if you’re not consistently moving forward then your career may be dying. Your current role should be helping you to develop your skills and expertise as opposed to keeping you stuck at a certain level.
In order to prevent your career from stagnating, you should regularly take some time to step back and review the work you have done. Think about what you have achieved, what you have learned and what challenges you have faced. If you can do this every couple of months, you’ll quickly be able to spot if you’ve stopped growing and developing as a professional in your current role.
If you assess your career and cannot see growth in these 3 ways, you may be due a job change.
1. Financial growth
As you progress within a company, you’ll want to have opportunities to increase your income. This could be through pay raises, promotions or bonuses that you can achieve as you reach your personal goals. It’s important that you know your company can give you opportunities to do this.
2. Growing influence
Your career is important and therefore you should have power and control over its direction. As you progress and establish yourself at work, you should also be able to grow your influence. This means earning respect and support from your colleagues and managers. Once you have this, you’ll be in a better position to navigate your career in the way that you want.
3. Building your skillset
Your skillset should be something that you are continuously working on and building. This is what makes you valuable to your employer and if your skills aren’t relevant anymore, you won’t be either. Your employer should support you in developing and improving your skills, but you’ll need to be proactive too.
Should you stay or should you go?
Once you’ve completed the steps above, you’ll have a better idea about whether you’re currently hitting any roadblocks. If you are, you have a couple of options. Your first port of call may be to sit down with your boss and discuss how you can put a plan in place to get you back on the right track. The second option is to look for new job opportunities.
If you decide that leaving your current role is the best option for you, then make sure you stick to it. Finding a new job may take time and effort but it will be well worth it to save your dying career!
Need help with your job search? Discover all of our job searching tips here!