Top Career Tips for Executives

Top Career Tips for Executives

Over the years and within the function of talent search and recruitment, JRG partners has gained expertise in pinning down traits and characteristics of a good career path for job seekers. We know what is expected from employees and what are the traits that help them excel and progress within their organizations. We know that by sharing these traits, we can help many executives accelerate their careers. Below is a list of most important career tips that every executive should follow to excel, be appreciated and attain their career goals expeditiously.

From time-to-time, we keep looking for job satisfaction in our present assignments & jobs. You may derive job satisfaction from your work, job security, appreciations, your salary, promotions, good working conditions etc. However, as time passes, job satisfaction may start to diminish. One should always keep evaluating and analyzing the level of job satisfaction one derives from his/her current employment. If for reasons outside your control, your job satisfaction is diminishing, it is time to initiate a job search for a better and more congenial job. Consult a reliable recruitment agency and discuss your present job situation with them. Seek advice on how you can help improve your current job satisfaction or if you need to switch a job. If you are advised to initiate a job search, do not waste time. It’s best to initiate an early and timely job search than to stick around in your current job and allow matters to get out of control.

2. Current Job: Likes & Dislikes

While evaluating your current job, as stated above, you may derive job satisfaction from your work, job security, appreciations, your salary, promotions, good working conditions etc. Out of the above-listed job satisfaction factors, it is likely that you may have an affinity towards some factors than others. Identify the most important job satisfaction factors that you value. For example, one may be more motivated and satisfied with good work conditions as against promotions. It’s a matter of personal choice and preferences. While on the look out for your preferred job satisfaction traits, you may start looking for opportunities (a new position) within your current organization that may have more of your preferred job satisfaction likings. Switching on to that position will help improve your job satisfaction and should be your first priority.

3. Create a Rocking LinkedIn Profile

More and more employers are moving towards the internet to find the desired talent. Both employers and recruitment consultants use online resources to search and communicate with the right talent. LinkedIn provides a convenient platform to both job seekers and recruiters. Over the years, the use and
acceptance of LinkedIn has increased. From an estimate, currently, over 40% employers and recruiters use LinkedIn to find and recruit talent. For you, this presents a distinct opportunity to connect with recruiters comfortably. However, just creating a profile does not eliminate competition. In order to
differentiate yourself from other job seekers within your industry in general and your skill sets, in particular, you need to ensure that your profile stands out from the crowd. Consider optimizing your LinkedIn profile by including a professional headshot. Use a unique and catchy job title. Create a detailed and compelling executive summary. When writing your job experience, ensure to be as creative and employer oriented as possible. Ensure to read as many profiles as possible in order to understand what details others are including in theirs. If possible take assistance from recruiters or placement agencies to include aspects that they may be more interested in.

4. Be Well Prepared for a Behavioral Interview

Immediately after the initial screening of deserving candidates, employers line up behavioral interviews for shortlisted candidates. More information on behavioral hiring is available here. The key to success in a behavioral interview is anticipation and planning. Preparation for job role based questions and your response to them will help you navigate such behavioral interviews effectively. Start by:

Taking Notes on your past experience in handling common tasks and duties involved in the job function. What did you do in order to achieve the desired goals? How you navigated the hurdles that you face in the process of achieving the goals. Which of your traits and skill-sets helped you in achieving the goals.

Review your notes and improvise. Your confidence in handling behavioral questions will be the most important distinguishing factor in the interview. It will help differentiate you from other candidates. The more you review and improvise on your notes, the more confident you will become. You may even consult the recruitment agency to understand better the required skill sets while reviewing your notes. Try including the required skill sets within your notes and address them in an appropriate manner. These notes will help you smoothly navigate the interview.

As against not carrying anything, going into a behavioral interview, the best way to effectively pass a behavioral interview is by bringing along the notes with you on the interview day. keep revising the notes so that you do not wander away from the required skills for the interview. Your being focused on the desired skills will be well appreciated by the interviewers and will dramatically improve your chances of success.

Ideally, the best way to answer behavioral questions is to explain the situation, the necessary actions that the situation demanded, the method in which you took the actions and most importantly, the outcome of such actions and what was the takeaway for you from that experience.

5. Effectively Ending Interviews (Questions you should ask)

Equally important for an effective interview are questions that you ask when given an opportunity. Once they are done asking their set of questions within an interview, it is customary for interviewers to provide the job seeker an opportunity to ask any questions that they may have. If you have previously attended job interviews you may already be familiar with this. When given an opportunity to ask questions, one wonders that will be the most appropriate questions that one should ask. As against the normal tendency and urge to clear the air and ask for when they may announce the results of the interview, a better practice is to avoid such a question. You already know the answer to this question. If you are selected, you will be informed about it within a short period of time (usually 1 week). Thus instead, ask about the company information: things that you could not find on the company’s website. This shows to the interviewers your interest in knowing more about the company and will be more appreciated.

6. Be Curious and Ready to Learn

Curiosity in this context means that you should be always ready to learn. Ask questions and seek for answers to questions that can help you better understand: your environment, people in your team, processes etc. Keep yourself well versed with the opportunities around you. Adapt to changes in the environment around you and try and learn how you can make use of those changes. Try to be a good listener and surround yourself with people who are experienced and insightful and can guide you from time-to-time. Be ready to empower them to advise you and listen to what they have to say with full attention and try to implement their suggestions whenever and wherever possible.

7. Plan Your Career Path Well

Arguably the most important aspect of a career is planning. You should have both long term plans and short term plans which are derived from your long term plans. Create checkpoints and balances to ensure that you are well within your overall career plan and your career goals are well marked within a time-frame. Deviations to the long term plans should be accompanied by corrective short term plans which help track back to the original goals. While successful completion of goals should be celebrated every often, failures should be used to create now goals and checkpoints to help ensure overall career grown goals are achieved. Create both realistic and achievable career plans. Do not set too high or too low goals. Ensure to balance out the goals within appropriate time frames in order for smooth and step-by-step career growth.

8. Look for and learn Skills that will help your Progress

At every level within an organization, there are varying skill-sets that are needed for the employee to excel within their roles. As you progress through the varying levels within an organization, you will need to learn different skills that will help you effectively perform your roles. Many-a-times, organizations train their recently promoted employees to equip them with those skills that are needed to perform their duties when they are promoted. Not all skills are well documented and some of them can only be learned through experience. Within your current role, you will always have immediate bosses around you. You can observe them, understand what skills they use and how they tackle situations. Understand what they do when to take them in confidence and learn from them the skills that you may lack. Your work environment is the most dynamic place where if you employ yourself well, you can understand and learn the skills that are needed for your to progress forward.

Above are some of the career tips that will help you keep performing well in your career. Apply these tips to see how they can propel your career progress. Keep visiting our website for more career tips and advice which we keep publishing and updating from time to time.