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PM Forum - London
Taking responsibility for your own Career
What can you do to build your individual brand and give yourself greater exposure within your organisation and within your industry? How do you get to the next level? What can you do NOW to take responsibility for your career development? These were just some of the questions discussed by this months PM Forum panel. The three speakers were Halina Kochanovicz from Linklaters, Giles Taylor from Layton Taylor Consulting and Nigel Boniface from Saffery Champness with Richard Chaplin moderating discussion.
One of the very practical parts of the discussion was focusing on your CV. Honesty on your CV is the crucial element. Also, CV’s can look fantastic on paper however some people tend to provide more information than they need to. Clients may prefer to be surprised positively in an interview. A CV is a tool to open doors, after that it is up to you to sell yourself. In an interview you need to show that you are someone who can build relationships and influence people positively.
When thinking about your career, work out what skills you have and what your firm is offering. Don’t wait for the firm to come to you. Talk to people who are two to three years ahead of you in their career, find out the path they took and what they went through. Take advise from these people, they could be potential mentors for you. Also speak to your HR department regarding potential mentors.
The consensus from the panel was that most people tended to wait for the firm to determine their career direction, but that it is best to take control of it yourself. You don’t need to leave the organisation in order to progress; career development can and does happen internally. Before you look outside, explore what is available for you internally you may be surprised at what you find.
If you think you are ready to move to the next level then step up. Demonstrate that you are capable of moving up rather than waiting to be promoted before taking on other responsibilities.
The annual appraisal process is very useful but don’t wait for your annual appraisal to raise issues you may have, create an open fluid dialogue with your line manager all year long.
The evening provided some useful and practical tips for progressing your own career. We are all very different and we need to look at what we want and how we can drive it rather than letting others chose the path for us. To sum this up the panel left us with this thought "It’s your career, you need to manage it; don’t let it manage you"
Lindsey McCullagh
Struan Robertson Associates Limited
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