How to Effectively Manage Your Career

by Susan Zitron Woods
Zitron Career Services

Found in this article:

Creating A Personal Career Plan (page 1)
Your Internal Motivators (page 2)
Non-Negotiable Career Criteria (pages 3, 4, 5)

Successful companies have business plans, which include a vision of their goals and a strategy to achieve them. In order to achieve a goal, you must have a plan. The clearer your description, the easier the goal is to recognize and accomplish. Once you know what you want, the next step is to create a strategy for achievement. Without clearly defining what you want and a means for achieving it, you either substantially reduce or completely eliminate your chances for success. For example, if you knew you wanted to take a trip, but weren't sure of the destination, had little or no understanding of the geography, and no map, you could quite possibly end up driving around in circles or making time-consuming (and expensive) wrong turns. Avoid falling into this trap with your career.

Although some people know which jobs they want, many do not. Most do not have a strategy to help them achieve success. They have been wandering through their careers, either taking whatever has been offered, or worse, accepting positions they are good at, but don't like. With the advent of global economics with new markets springing up everywhere you look, combined with the total responsibility for managing your own career, it is now more important than ever that you begin deliberately and proactively designing your career success.

Creating A Personal Career Plan

I have created a technology called the Personal Career Plan that helps people achieve truly satisfying work. In fact, completing their personal career plans has given every one of my clients the confidence to turn down excellent job opportunities for which each was fully qualified, because they realized the positions were not a fit for their plan. They did find great opportunities that are a fit and, for most, it did not take very long to achieve.

Creating your personal career plan means addressing changes that will affect your total lifestyle, not just your job. Begin by defining the personal and professional goals you wish to achieve. William Bridges, renowned author of books on how to successfully manage change, recommends that you capitalize on the change. I have learned to quit resisting change, and to accept it as a normal part of everyday life. It doesn't change the challenge, but I now move forward with greater ease.

By defining your goals, you will begin designing a lifestyle that includes the changes you know are necessary to your happiness. Take a look at the following examples of actual goals written by my clients. Use the forms on the following pages to begin yours.

Three Examples of Personal and Professional Goals

Example A: Senior Executive

To increase my interpersonal skills and management responsibilities.
To increase my value and worth in the marketplace to a minimum of $150,000 income plus stock options, perks and benefits to a minimum $200,000 package.
To expand my career vision so that I am running a company worth approximately a quarter billion dollars.
I want to work for a dynamic business manager who has business acumen, is a visionary, is creative, has strong interpersonal skills and can bring people together and empower their strengths. Someone who is confident in his/her ability to hire top talent and, therefore, freely listens to and implements advice to help reach the company's goals. People get involved and believe in this person.
To find a company with a defined purpose and vision.
To find a company that respects the personal lives of its employees and doesn't require continuous overtime and weekend efforts.
To earn more than enough money to cover all of our expenses.
To have the child we want now and to financially maintain our lifestyle.
To relocate back East, especially close to New York.

Within five months after creating his personal career plan, this man left his post as manager for a $33 million division, and accepted a totally unexpected promotion within his organization as vice president of sales of Canada. He and his wife moved from the Bay Area to their new home in Toronto. She was able to give up her $80,000 a year job because of the 25% increase in his base salary, which brought his total package to $200,000. They had their first child that June.

Example B: Senior Administrative Assistant

To define a career that will leverage my current skills.
To have my next job be a long-term commitment and a win/win for myself and my employer.
To determine my current abilities to manage others, and if necessary, to know which skills need to be polished.
To get control in my life, meaning that I choose where I work and live instead of my job dictating it.
To learn new skills in my ability to react appropriately and without damaging my relationships, so that I am comfortable with thinking before speaking, as I did in Toastmasters, and so that my co-workers feel good about working with me.
To have my Personal Career Plan help organize my career, so that I can meet my short- and long-term goals that are not work related, like regularly attending the opera and ballet.
To have high self-esteem and self-confidence all of the time. Even when I have doubts, I want to be able to fall back on my strong self-confidence.
To eliminate words and thoughts that are disempowering and replace them with empowering words that establish my control over my circumstances.
To learn new and successful ways to manage myself in the business world, so that I excel in my career choice, and earn the income I want.
To find a boss who truly appreciates my hard work and skills, who trusts me to be responsible and accountable for my area, and with whom I personally enjoy working.

This senior administrative assistant spent five months working as a temp, and, for the first time in her life (she was 40), turned down an excellent position that developed while she was filling in. Within thirty days of turning down that job (which was not a fit for her career plan because the boss was a stick-in-the-mud) she accepted an outstanding full-time position that was a fit. A year later, she is still happily working there. Her responsibilities expanded greatly to include managing expense payments and authorizations for 60 departments. Her boss was new to the company when he hired her, and they continue to be a great team. She now exercises regularly, takes vitamins, changed her diet, and is considerably happier with her slimmer self, her job and those with whom she works. Additionally, she has taken the time to greatly improve her communication skills, and to attend the ballet and opera more often.

Example C: Technical Sales and Marketing Manager

To define my "right" career path.
To better understand myself as I relate to my career, my wife and my children and to be able to manage my time to achieve balance and satisfaction in each area.
To define what success has looked like in my past and what it looks like now, and use that information to leverage my future career goals.
To present myself in a professional manner to achieve an offer and acceptance in a job that best meets my non-negotiable career values.
To overcome my fear of the "out-of-work syndrome," so that I can be empowered to do what it takes to make sound decisions that lead me to my next best career opportunity.
To develop the ability to understand, and then be understood.
To get the full value out of working on my career plan so that I am able to continually and effectively manage my own career.
To have a conscious awareness of how my past experiences have served me, either positively or negatively, and to leverage that wisdom throughout my career.

When Jim came to me, he had been out of work for two months. Eight weeks after we started, he landed a hot position as a senior product marketing manager in an organization that met all of his criteria. Whereas his previous company gave him a very rough time, his current boss, and even the president of the new company, have acknowledged his contributions. His wife told me that, for the first several months, he was bringing work home on weekends. But that tapered off once he became more familiar with the position. He is definitely spending the quality time with his family, and putting in the balance he wanted. A year later, Jim was promoted and given international responsibility. And he continues to love his job! Now it's your turn to write out your personal and professional goals. Be open, candid and honest with yourself. Don't write down anything that doesn't truly interest you. This is not a wish list, so only put down what you are willing to commit to achieving. And don't stop at nine or ten items. I have clients with over 25 goals in this exercise. Go for it!

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