But what’s commonly called a career
makeover can take place incrementally,
without disrupting the daily needs of the
office or requiring a dramatic vocational
change. In fact, career advisors say workers may discover that reinvigorating
their careers is hardly as intimidating a
prospect as they’d anticipate.
Take a Personal Assessment
The concept of “job crafting” is emerging as a reality. It requires that workers
take inventory of their day-to-day roles
and pinpoint those that provide satisfaction and those that do not. After this
is determined, the employee needs to
come up with ways to increase involvement in duties that are engaging, says
Amy Wrzesniewski, an associate professor of organizational behavior at the
Yale School of Management.
Too often, employees let slip daily
opportunities to transform their roles.
For example, a marketing executive may
want to develop a big, multiplatform
social network promotional strategy.
But, given multiple rounds of layoffs, the
exec is too besieged with training subordinates for their now expanded but
basic functions.
“What that executive can do is tap
the talents of those he’s training to
transition to doing what he wants to
do,” says Wrzesniewski, who is a coauthor of a recent article on this topic in
Harvard Business Review. “He can assess
which employees have the talent to
help him work on his big-picture project and allow them to do that. He can
also prepare employees to take over
his training, further freeing him up for
his project.”
Online Resources to Help
With Your Career Makeover
hbr.org: The Harvard Business Review website features other guides to help
employees reduce multitasking, discover what bosses want and evaluate their
potential
mbticomplete.com: Allows you to take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test
online, for $59.95
google.com/alerts: Monitors whenever anyone mentions you, your company,
your competitors or relevant business trends
Establish Your Expertise—and
a Niche
Ever wonder how someone emerges
as an expert? For some, it comes down
to knowledge with a healthy dose of
marketing. New Yorker Mary Lou Quin-lan rose to prominence as a female-consumer strategist in part because she
started writing Op-Ed pieces in trade
publications and went on to write magazine articles, then books—subsequently
gaining demand as a public speaker.
“It’s a matter of being visible out
there,” she says, “and showing up.”
It’s the kind of effort that feeds upon
itself. “Those who write and speak are
often asked to write and speak more,”
says Thom Singer, a business consul-
tant and author of the Some Assembly
Required series of books on professional
networking. “These are the people who
are seen as experts. It’s an effort that
creates an ongoing circle.”
Not everyone, of course, is that
assertive and extroverted. But nearly
everyone can elevate himself or herself
as a valuable expert by developing skills
in a unique niche. Thomas Rees grew
frustrated attempting to distinguish
himself as a broker in New York. He
felt he was simply one in a cast of thou-
sands trying to get ahead. Then he did
some homework and discovered that
less than 1 percent of his fellow brokers
were involved in a particular, salable
niche that entailed the discretionary
management of customers’ money.
Become the Go-To Person
Take a look around the office and figure
out what isn’t getting done that would
satisfy you, then volunteer to do it.
It can work, as long as the big bosses
are on board. To win them over, you
need to present the case that the time
invested would be good for the company.
In the case of a worker who wants to
mentor, it helps to present a plan with
lasting benefits. The worker could propose creating a permanent, all-purpose
training manual for new employees,
including digital components and even
“fun” stuff such as an online quiz.
“It would not only help these employ-
ees get to know how the company works,
but they’d get to know you better in the
process,” says Judi Perkins, a Connecticut-
based career coach. “This increases your
value within the organization.”
In some cases, a worker may struggle
to identify exactly what would be moti-
vational, but there are tools that can
help. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator,
for example, has been around for seven
decades, providing professionals with a
sense of their strengths and how they’re
perceived by others. And Myers-Briggs
has now posted an online version of its
