The Career Advantage of Becoming Comfortable With Problems You Haven’t Seen Before There is a stage in your career when being good at familiar work stops being enough. You know the process. You understand the usual problems. You can handle the common requests without much help. You know which steps to follow and who to […]
What to Do When Your Skills Are Strong but Your Career Direction Isn’t There is a frustrating stage in a career that doesn’t get talked about enough. You know you’re capable. You have experience. You can point to things you’ve done well. People trust you with difficult work. You may even have skills that employers […]
Why Being Able to Explain Your Decisions Can Change How People See You There is a big difference between making a good decision and being able to explain why you made it. You might choose the right approach. You might solve the problem correctly. You might avoid a mistake that could have caused serious trouble. […]
How to Turn a Boring Responsibility Into Valuable Career Experience Not every useful career experience starts with an exciting project. Sometimes it starts with something painfully ordinary. Updating a spreadsheet. Checking invoices. Scheduling meetings. Preparing weekly reports. Following up with customers. Cleaning up records. Answering the same questions repeatedly. Maintaining a process that has existed […]
Why Your Career May Grow Faster When You Stop Trying to Prove Everything Early in your career, proving yourself can feel like the safest strategy. You want people to know you’re capable. So you volunteer. You answer quickly. You take the difficult assignment. You stay late. You explain your decisions. You make sure people know […]
What to Do When You Keep Getting More Work but Not More Opportunities There is a point in many careers when being good at your job starts creating a strange problem. You become dependable. People trust you. Your manager knows you can handle difficult assignments. Coworkers come to you when something needs to get done. […]
The Career Advantage of Knowing How Your Work Affects Other Teams It is easy to think about your job in isolation. You finish your tasks. You answer the requests that come to you. You meet deadlines. You fix problems when they appear. And at the end of the day, it can feel like your work […]
How to Tell Whether You’re Building Career Capital or Just Staying Busy A full calendar can make you feel productive. You answer messages. Attend meetings. Finish assignments. Help coworkers. Solve problems. Stay late when necessary. Then another week passes, and you look back and wonder: “What did I actually gain from all of that?” That’s […]
Why Some Skills Become More Valuable When You Combine Them There is a common way to think about career skills. Find a valuable skill. Get good at it. Add another skill. Repeat. It sounds logical, but careers don’t always work that way. Sometimes the biggest increase in your value doesn’t come from becoming dramatically better […]
The Career Value of Becoming Better at Difficult Conversations Some of the conversations that matter most in your career are the ones you would rather avoid. Telling a coworker that their work is creating problems. Telling your manager that a deadline isn’t realistic. Asking someone to change their behavior. Disagreeing with an idea you think […]