Future proofing your career and being ahead of the curve are
two sides of the same coin. If you're doing one correctly, you should also be
doing the other. But they're not quite the same thing.
Future-proofing your career means ensuring you are as
employable in the future as you are now. You need to stand back and think about
your job strategically, rather than just letting it happen to you. Look at the
bigger picture: what's happening in your sector; where's the growth; which jobs
are vulnerable; how do you measure up?
Think about what you
know
As the world speeds up, your technical skills will have an
ever shorter lifespan and you need to learn constantly. Don't just confine
yourself to your field, either. Read up on fields adjacent to yours, the idea
being that if your role disappears, you have other options. You don't want to
be the workplace equivalent of an animal that can live only in one species of
tree. Rewrite your CV every year; if you can't think of something new to put on
it, you need to think about where you're going.
Look at your sector
and organisation
You should be working in an organisation that's facing the
future head on rather than one whose best years are behind it. The same is true
of your sector. You want an industry which is driving change, rather than one
that is being pummelled by it.
Work on your
relationships
People often view building working relationships as a luxury
when times are tough. But being liked and trusted can be more of a
differentiator than being competent. Keep in touch with your network and ensure
you're visible and easy to find. A network that extends beyond your workplace
and includes clients, headhunters and competitors is a good insurance policy if
things go bad.
Aim to be agile and
adaptable
Rather than having the mindset of someone who is happy to
serve out their time, be psychologically ready to move and the kind of person
who lands on their feet; a realistic idea of your abilities and what they're
worth will help. Focus on the positives be optimistic; when companies look at
making redundancies, those who have an upbeat, can-do attitude are very rarely
first in line.
If future proofing your career is dealing with bigger
picture and long term, staying ahead of the curve is more immediate. It's the
kind of thing you can work on when you have 15 minutes to spare.
Broadly speaking there are two aspects to being ahead of the
curve. One is informational. At its most basic, this is simply keeping up with
the news that affects your industry. But those who truly want to be ahead will
also keep abreast of areas that are either general or tangentially affect their
industry. Being up to speed on general current affairs and areas beyond your
immediate role is a good thing in itself, but is also likely to give you
greater insights and vision.
The internet has made this far easier to do this. Look up
TED talks that interest you, set up Google alerts for yourself and customers
and follow influential people on Twitter. You do need to be selective, though.
The personal side involves identifying who and what can help
you move forward in your career and working on these relationships; an example
might be knowing what is important to not just your boss, but also your boss's
boss. Don't forget office gossip either: it is often a better guide to what
will be happening in three months time than the official channels.
Of course, there's no point in being ahead of the curve, if
you're the only one who knows it. Demonstrate what you know, for example by
emailing your boss interesting articles you've come cross across. Make yourself
the go-to person in the office for your area and speak up in meetings. Put
yourself forward, rather than hanging back. And spend some time around the
watercooler immersing yourself in the organisation's less formal sources of
news.
Although all this might seem a lot, the trick is to make
many of these actions habitual – and this is really where staying ahead of the
curve segues seamlessly into future-proofing. On one hand, you read The
Economist every week on the train and on the other, you do a gap-analysis on
your career every six months. It's about covering yourself in both the long and
the short term and ensuring you're the kind of person who looks forward to
change, rather than fearing it.
Source: 6 November 2012, The Guardian by Rhymer Rigby -
Author of a new book, The Careerist
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