Speak up! Remember the idiom “Out of Sight, Out of Mind!” Talk to your boss about your career aims – preferably aims that are attainable within your company. It’s your career and you must do your best and manage it! Promote your accomplishments in a fact-based way, but not in a bragging manner. Contribute something meaningful and relevant to the conversation; ensure that you are positively “seen and heard”!
Avoid gossip and office politics! You must demonstrate integrity and trustworthiness; getting in the middle of office gossip is a sure way to endanger your career. While it is important for your career to understand office politics, especially the unspoken rules, you must ensure that you don’t get caught up in petty politics. Know the players, respect the players and even form appropriate alliances, but be careful how you play the game watching from the sidelines or from box seats is far less dangerous and can be profitable.
Prove a strong work ethic!Examine how hard you work at your job — and we’re not talking about just showing up on time and not leaving early. Work ethic is about how much effort you put into your job. Typically, the more you like your work — and your employer — the stronger your work ethic.
You may be very good at your job — and that is important — but do you ever try to push the limits of your work? In other words, do you ever consider better ways you could do your job — or better ways your department could function — and make suggestions to your boss? Just do not confuse taking initiative with knowing it all.
