How to Market Yourself or Advance Your Career at Your Current Job

In these hard economical times, it seems that people need to start acquiring new skills or have more than one skill in order to get ahead. There are those who may think to themselves, if I was to get lay off, what will I do? These same people may have been at their jobs for years. If a person has a job today, consider yourself bless, but do not get too comfortable, acquire new skills while you are working. It may be that a person may not know where to begin to know what they can do to build or strengthen existing skills or to acquire new skills.

Instructions:

Step1

Begin with a personal analysis, a personal SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis. Corporations use SWOT analysis to determine what type of strategic approaches to take to have competitive and strategic advantages over competitors to gain market share. A personal SWOT analysis can be used to identify your own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Once identified, write it out. The idea of doing this is to assist in helping with personal development and what new strategies an individual should take to progress.

Step2

Take advantage of your employer’s TAP (Tuition Assistance Program) or online classes offered through the company’s intranet. If those are not options, new skills can be acquired through volunteering. There are also virtual volunteering opportunities that can be found on www.volunteermatch.org if travel and time is an issue. In addition, become a self-learner by acquiring certain books or materials through the library, online or bookstores. It takes discipline to be a self-learner; however, these new skills will then become your strengths and create new opportunities.

Step3

Participate in a mentoring program. Does your company have a mentoring program? If not, let’s narrow it down. Does your group have a mentoring program? If not, be an initiator. Implement one. In these tough economical times, it is great to be innovative by implementing new systems or processes into your group. Get cross-trained, create a knowledge sharing system, or improve such system. It could impress your boss, which can help in eliminating the threat of being lay off.