20 Actionable Career Advice You Cannot Ignore
One thing no one needs career advice on is that results matter. You must deliver results, that’s your priority number one at any work.
And why? First, because it’s the job, this is what we’re paid for. And second, because results make an impact on the customers and the organization, which also has benefits to the individual: satisfaction, self-realization, personal growth, more responsibility and higher impact, teaching and pushing colleagues and direct reports to results, monetary compensation, promotions, higher status and anything else that is of importance.
Results are outcomes; achievements that make a difference for the business, and tasks, output, quality, quantity, timeliness, accuracy, safety and so on. They also have to be consistent over time.
Results are mandatory, and in contrast to what some think, they are not enough!
Career advice — beyond results
Relationships
It’s all about people. Maintain relationships and network, not only when you need it, like after losing your job.
Give, not in order to get, but because you can. People will often give to others and back to you.
Being kind is free. Being aggressive or cynical doesn’t portray you as powerful. It ruins relationships and makes people minimize contact with you.
Get to know people, it makes work so much easier. Think how more accessible it is to approach someone you know rather than a complete stranger. Or when someone you know approaches you, compared to someone you don’t know.
Keep learning
Read professional books, they are a competitive advantage. It’s so easy to see who reads and who doesn’t, whether about technology, leadership, process, industry or psychology. Just reading articles here and there is better than nothing, but is not likely to make an impact.
The same goes for practicing: coding katas, workshops, hackathons, dedicated learning time, side-projects and even management.
While they often lack the depth of a book, listening to podcasts and watching videos can be highly beneficial.
Another way of learning is by teaching: write a blog, visit meetups, attend conferences and give talks at work.
Act
Be proactive, don’t be complacent. Share your ideas, thoughts and initiatives and realize you have the agency to make changes around you. Most managers appreciate employees who bring their own agenda and initiatives rather than wait to be told what to do and how.
In the case where it’s inappropriate or too much, your manager will tell you.
“Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment.” Even when you’re wrong, you will learn for the next time. It’s better to act.
And more broadly, you’re the one in charge of your career, not your employer. Be deliberate about your choices.
Personal brand
Personal brand is what people say or think about you when you’re not in the room. Make sure you act in the direction you want to be talked about. Whether it’s technical expertise, leadership skills, kindness, mentoring or industry knowledge.
Write about these topics, give talks, tell others. Be authentic, make it about what you’re passionate about, and still reinvent yourself when the times are changing.
If you have great results but no one knows about them, do you have great results?
Share your good work, big and small successes. You are your best advocate.
Accept organizational tax
Collaboration is the biggest human invention, which allows achieving what no single individual can. When you join an organization at good will, you agree to the rules, aka organizational tax, like being paid at the end of the month, wearing a badge, using Google Suite and Slack.
The career advice here is to accept rather than get frustrated by things you cannot change. Of course, do try to change what you can, like a bad time for the weekly 1:1 or lack of test automation.
Journal
Frequently capture your accomplishments, learning, failures and efforts, e.g. place a weekly reminder on your calendar.
From this raw document, you can create and update your resume with ease.
This will make your self-assessment part of the performance review very easy, and you will not have to rely on memory.
Do the same for your direct reports. Besides saving a lot of time during performance reviews, your direct reports will be surprised that you mentioned things from the entire evaluation period and not only from the last 2 weeks.
Resume
The only purpose of the resume is to get an interview. That’s all.
List your professional experience in descending chronological order and then your education.
Keep it a single page and above all, include your achievements as bullet points, with actual numbers, to demonstrate what you did and how well you did it.
More concrete guidance here.
Say “Yes”
Internal opportunities are important for growth and to show willingness to contribute. Refusals might be career-limiting.
External opportunities: talk in a meetup/conference, be a guest in a podcast, write a blog, represent the company with partners, clients and candidates.
Keep in mind: never sacrifice results — they are the most important thing.
Say “No”
Over-committing and over-promising will have negative consequences such as reduced reliability, burnout and lower achievements. It’s important to know to say no and how to say it, whether it’s your boss, peers or external parties.
“If I say yes to this, I will not be able to accomplish topic X, which we committed to. Is that alright to drop it?”
“I will align priorities with my manager and come back to you.”
“This will be a great opportunity for Andrea, as it’s a topic that she is interested in growing in.”
Getting a promotion
It’s not about tenure or deserving, it’s about bringing value.
First understand what is important to your boss, her goals and agenda.
Carefully read the career ladder if it exists, the company values and other unwritten behaviors that are rewarded. Look at colleagues who are considered top performers and derive what makes them such.
The 150% rule: do 100% of the current role + 50% of the next role — proof is much stronger than a belief you could do it.
Actively communicate your intentions to your boss. If they hesitate, get areas for growth from them.
Getting goals
It’s better to have specific goals from your manager. If you don’t, you’d still be evaluated, but you will not know how.
Very often managers don’t give goals and it’s tricky to ask for them because it implies that either the manager has none, or they have and didn’t communicate.
The recommendation is to create measurable and time-bound goals that make sense and ask the manager for feedback. It’s much easier for them to build upon your plan and adjust it.
Effective communication
Learn about DiSC.
First, it will make you much less frustrated with others’ behaviors.
Why does your colleague want to decide everything and move fast?
Why does another make jokes and ignore facts?
Why does another never push back?
Why does another take ages to decide?
Second, it will increase your likelihood of being effective, meaning getting the results you want, because each “profile” speaks a different language and values different currencies.
Receiving feedback
Whether positive or negative feedback, say “Thank you for the feedback.”
For positive ones, don’t say it was nothing or just part of the job or give credit to others who do not deserve it.
For negative ones, don’t justify and explain your intent. It doesn’t matter. Think about it, learn from it and do better next time.
Feedback to the boss
Despite the common narrative that feedback goes in all directions, giving feedback to the boss can be dangerous. Especially when they say they are open to it but there is evidence of the opposite.
You cannot change people, you can change yourself.
If you have a very good relationship, you can try on very low stakes and see how it evolves.
Mentoring
Find a mentee or a mentor — create new relationships, get exposed to new opportunities, learn from the experience and guidance of others and help shape the next generation.
Individual development plan
In order for the IDP to be successful, it has to be measurable and time-bound.
The secret to a successful one is planning for incremental progress — weekly actions and tracking. Consistency over intensity — better to make slow steady continuous progress than infrequently make big chunks of progress. If you don’t continuously work on it, what are the chances that you will complete it close to the target date?
Rage-quit
Don’t rage quit. If you decide to leave for whatever reason, keep doing the work and search for a new job. Don’t tell anyone because there are no secrets.
Rage-quitting might give immediate relief, but it’s very short-lived and you don’t want to not have a source of income.
Exit interview
Many organizations conduct a mandatory exit interview. That is an HR person or the direct manager asking about the reasons for your leaving and what the organization could improve.
It may feel good to talk about everything that is wrong, let it “out of the system”, make justice and help your colleagues. But in reality, there is only risk and no value: risk of getting punished and ruining relationships. Do you really believe you can change the organization now that you’re leaving if you failed to do so while you were part of it?
Honestly say the good things about the organization, the work and the colleagues.
A job that is a bit too big or scary
You will make the biggest leaps by taking a job that is a bit too big or scary. You will learn a lot and develop new skills.
It’s not the career advice “fake it till you make it” or taking a job that is out of reach, like jumping directly from software engineer to director of engineering managing 25 people. Know your own limits and gaps. Which ones can you bridge on the job?
Doing the same job time and again will not contribute to your professional growth.
Instead of 20 years of experience, you’d have 20 times the same year of experience.
Common sense
This career advice works great in 90% of the cases.
While “common sense is not that common”, there is no replacement for using judgment and adapting to your concrete situation.
