It’s a new year, and that means a renewed effort to manage your career. If you are like most people, you have made some New Year’s resolutions to improve performance for the coming year, and you may abandon those resolutions before January is over. However, if you are serious about making a positive career move in 2012, consider hanging on to some of these New Year’s resolutions:
- Complete your LinkedIn Profile – If you haven’t done it already, complete your LinkedIn profile, and if you have completed it, consider revising it. Spend some effort reworking your profile to integrate the right key words and make it compelling. Talk to co-workers and others who can offer recommendations. Add a professional photo. Think like a hiring manager and look at your profile and ask yourself, “Would I contact this person?”
- Network with a Purpose – Networking is important, and with social media it’s easy and it’s free! However, remember that you get what you pay for. Making thousands of LinkedIn connections has no value unless you know what those contacts can do for you. Identify a handful of networking groups and dig in so they know who you are. If you identify four LinkedIn groups, for example, each with 50 members, and you target those four groups, you emerge with 200 people who know who you are and what you have to offer.
- Clean up your digital dirt – It’s time to do some housekeeping. Look at some of those old accounts you never use and close them, or refresh them if you have to. Do a Google search on yourself and see where you might have to do damage control, or where you might have to focus your energies to improve the rankings for content that matters to your personal brand. Try to remove those embarrassing photos on Facebook and check for past rants about your coworkers and your boss on Twitter and elsewhere. Resolve to be a clean and sober cybercitizen this year.
- Determine your true value – Times have changed. Rather than chasing the salary you used to get three or four years ago, determine what your true market value is today. What are your skills worth today’s market, and how can you maximize your value? Check out Payscale.com, Glassdoor.com, Salary.com, and your peers and network contacts to reset your market value.
- Focus Your Efforts – Don’t throw your resume at any job that appears. Don’t pursue arbitrary networking opportunities to build your contact list. Focus. Determine where you are going to get the most traction. Identify your skills, what market you want to work in, and focus your efforts to network into that industry, targeting company and people who can help you achieve your goals. Apply laser-like focus to your career goals.
Of course, these aren’t just New Year’s resolutions but are useful the year round. The beginning of a new year is a good time to re-think your career objectives, and how best to achieve them.
