As I’ve mentioned in the past, one of the perks that comes with writing this career success blog is getting books to review. The other day, I received a copy of Take Back Your Career by Jan Marino. This is a little book that packs a big wallop – and I say that not just because of the boxing gloves on the cover.
Jan is writing mostly about how to find a job or make a career transition, but I find that her career advice is useful not only for people looking for a job, but for people who are looking to succeed in the job and with their company.
Take Back Your Career begins with what Jan calls the 10 new rules of the career game.
- A dynamic market presence is imperative.
- The new career game revolves around networking more than ever.
- Resumes are overrated (this bit of counterintuitive advice is worth the price of the book in and of itself.)
- Competition is fierce.
- You will have many careers and jobs in your lifetime.
- You are responsible for yourself and your career.
- Know what value you bring to the marketplace.
- Arrogance and confidence are not the same thing.
- You are not what you do.
- Retirement is being redefined.
Jan says that in order to create the career success you want you have to understand the five steps to competing in today’s career game:
- Determine a vision for your life and career success.
- Create your career success mission.
- Develop your personal brand.
- Maintain and grow your brand.
- Network, network, network.
According to Jan your vision is an overall statement of two things – your life’s work and what you stand for. Your mission is the action you will take to reach your vision. Your personal brand is a succinct statement of how you want others to think of you. Jan says there you need to answer three questions to brand yourself:
- Who are you? These are the features you bring to the table – things like your experience, talents, educations, ethics and accomplishments.
- What makes you different? These are the benefits you offer – things that make your features valuable.
- What do you contribute? This is your value. – things that set you apart from others.
Jan says that you grow your brand by consistently and constantly acting in a manner that reflects how you want others to think of you. You get your brand out there by networking – meeting as many people as you can and sharing your brand with them. In Chapter Five, “Getting Into Playing Shape” Jan asks ten questions that can help you in playing the new career game and get moving toward your career success. Check them out…
- Have you created your personal brand?
- How are you building your on line presence?
- How do you measure the effectiveness of your network?
- What professional organizations or networking groups do you belong to?
- When did you last upgrade your skills? What options are available to you?
- What are the current trends in your industry?
- Have you published any informational articles using your expertise?
- How current is your headshot (professional picture of you)?
- How current is your professional bio?
- What books are you reading?
I like these 10 questions because they address too very important keys to life and career success that I emphasize in my writing – creating positive personal impact, and lifelong learning. Questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, and 9 are all about creating positive personal impact. Questions 5, 6 and 10 focus on lifelong learning.
When you create positive personal impact, people want to be around you. They want to work with you. They want you on their team. As Jan suggests in her questions, a well-defined personal brand and online presence, coupled with a strong network will go a long way to creating positive personal impact. Throw in a few well written ezine articles and a current headshot and bio and you’re on your way to becoming an in demand colleague with a great professional image
When you back up your professional image by keeping your skills up to date and staying on top of what’s going on in your industry by reading books and articles and staying active in professional and trade associations you will not only be in playing shape, you’ll be positioned to play to win.
The career success coach point here is simple common sense. Successful lives and careers just don’t happen. They are the result of some clear thinking, meticulous planning and great execution. In Take Back Your Career Jan Marino offers some great advice on how to create the life and career success you want and deserve. Using sports metaphors, Jan shows you how to slant the career playing field in your favor. This is a small but powerful book. I suggest you get it and more important, put the advice inside into play to help you create your life and career success.
That’s some of the career advice I found in Jan Marino’s great new book Take Back Your Career. What do you think? Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment. As always, thanks for taking the time to read my daily musings on life and career success. I value you and I appreciate you.
Bud
PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained. The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less. The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail. Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy. You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.
PPS: I opened a membership site last September. It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations. You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.
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