The following article is a continuation of the previous article written on the first three of the six principles to reaching your ultimate career potential.
The Bridge Model is a nonlinear model designed to provide you with key concepts required to reach your ultimate career success. Regardless of what type of career growth you are looking for, these principles are the common factors that will distinguish you as someone worthy and capable of reaching your highest career potential. The first three principles were covered in a previous article. They are Build Your Base, Respond Responsibly and Influence Impeccable. The next three principles are as follows:
4. Distinguish Yourself
The farther you want to take your career and the higher you want to climb, the tougher the competition gets. What are you doing to stand out from the crowd? By doing things such as performing beyond expectations, ensuring you have a strong team working for you who can do the same, and taking unwanted or tough assignments are the types of things that help differentiate you from others. It is doing things out of the ordinary (for example, being successful in a difficult assignment) which demonstrate you have the ambition and history of high performance required to get ahead.
5. Grow Your Skills
Do you know what skills and experiences are needed to advance your career? Hopefully the answer is yes but if not, you should identify these and put an action plan together to ensure you have what it takes as you continue to navigate along your career path. Having a career plan that will guide you along your path is essential. t ensures you keep on track and grow in the appropriate areas. Share your career plan with your leaders or mentors, or key stakeholders to get some input on the areas where you need to develop. As well, it helps keep your stakeholders updated on your aspirations and enables you to enlist their support as you advance. Another key aspect of growing your skills is to develop others. Learn to be a talent developer so you can groom your successor and have a strong viable candidate to replace you when you are ready to move up to the next position.
6. Encourage, Enlighten, Expect
As you continue to chart your own course of career growth, you should encourage and enlighten your key stakeholders on what to expect with regards to your performance. You should also encourage your peers, subordinates and superiors to expect only the best from you. By encouraging them to expect the best, you will most certainly want to deliver the best and this propels your career ahead. You should also practice being transparent and sharing as much information as possible to enlighten those around you about important information occurring in your work area. Individuals who advance into higher-level roles are those who are willing to share information because they know information is power. They want others to be empowered with knowledge so they can perform and do well. If you practice this, you will single yourself out as one who is worthy and capable of continued career advancement.
The six principles of the Bridge Model should be consistently practiced as you continue to advance along your career path. It is a fluid model designed so you can go back and forth between each principle and continue to practice and master these six areas that enable you to reach your ultimate career success.
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The leaves are changing, the kids are back in school, and that familiar chill is in the air. You think it's the perfect time to look for a job, and it is! But are your job search fears preventing you from making that leap?
It's not uncommon to feel lost when embarking on your job search journey. After all, school teaches us everything except how to get a job. What should you put on your resume? What questions should you ask in an interview? How can you stand out in the hiring process when there's so much competition?
Are you feeling spooked yet?
Believe it or not, there's no need to be afraid of the job search process! You can land your dream job with the right tools and strategy. You can find a job that won't give you nightmares. Here are three spooky secrets every job seeker should know as they look for a job this fall.
1. An Effective Job Search Starts With An Interview Bucket List
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Despite your fears, you've decided to take the plunge and look for a new job. You might be asking yourself, "Where do I start?" The answer is simple: start by creating an interview bucket list.
An interview bucket list is a list of 10-20 companies you'd love to work for. Are you passionate about a company's products or services? Do you feel connected to its mission? Can you relate to its values and beliefs as an organization? If you answer "yes" to any of these questions, that company probably belongs on your interview bucket list.
Once you create an interview bucket list, you'll be able to conduct a targeted job search, one with direction and a foundation upon which everything else will be built. An interview bucket list helps you focus your job search and networking strategies on the right opportunities, making it easier to get your foot in the door at one of your dream companies.
2. Your Job Application Needs To Disrupt Hiring Managers
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In order to stand out in the hiring process, you need to disrupt recruiters and hiring managers. You accomplish this by doing two things: optimizing your resume and writing a disruptive cover letter.
A well-optimized resume includes keywords from the job description. This ensures your resume gets past the ATS and into the hands of the hiring manager. Once it's in front of the hiring manager, it needs to grab and keep their attention. Quantifying your work experience—adding numbers to your bullet points—will make you stand out from other applicants. Hiring managers will want to know more about you and your accomplishments, and that's how you land a phone interview.
Before that, though, a hiring manager will read your cover letter. To disrupt them, you need to write a disruptive cover letter (obviously!). A disruptive cover letter gives you the opportunity to tell a story about why you feel connected to the company you're applying for. It's that storytelling aspect that will stand out to hiring managers and compel them to pick up the phone and give you a call.
3. Employers Hire You Based On 3 Things
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You can't get hired unless you know what employers are assessing you on in the interview process. While your skills and expertise matter, companies actually hire for three things: personality, aptitude, and experience (in that order).
Most job seekers don't realize how important it is to demonstrate their personality, aptitude, and experience in an interview. You could have the right experience for a job, but if the hiring manager doesn't think your personality is a good fit for the company culture, you probably won't get a job offer.
Make sure you demonstrate your soft skills and learn how to answer behavioral interview questions to prove you're the best candidate for the job you're applying for, not just the most qualified.
Want To Learn More Job Search Secrets?
As you look for a job this fall, it might be helpful to know some more spooky secrets so you can get over your job search fears and finally take control of your career.
We know the job search process can be scary. However, it's important to get clear on what you want to do next and focus on conducting a strategic job search, or what we refer to at Work It DAILY as job shopping. This is the only way to effectively market yourself to employers. If they can't see exactly where and how you add value, then that's going to decrease your chances of landing the job.
The competition is fierce, and there are a lot of factors that are out of your control. But the one factor you can control is your job search strategy, the tools and tactics you use to land a job.
If you want to learn the secrets to conducting a strategic job search, sign up for our Job Search Bootcamp, a two-hour, on-demand video workshop that comes with a free workbook.
In this video workshop, you'll learn:
- How to use backchanneling to get directly to hiring managers.
- The secret to using a connection story to stand out against the competition.
- How social media can be your secret weapon to get job interviews.
- The resume format that is getting job seekers more job interviews.
- And, a lot more hacks for job search success!
Let us show you the secrets to getting a new, better-paying job you actually love. Sign up for our Job Search Bootcamp today.
Are you ready to land the job of your dreams (and leave the job of your nightmares)?
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