Achieve Professional Growth With These 10 Strategies

If you’ve been listening to podcasts on the internet, you probably know that self-improvement and career growth strategies are all over the digital realm. Growing professionally has become a buzzphrase, generating clicks and sometimes, only a few seconds of view times.

However, growth is essential for your career progression, the development of soft skills and technical skills, along with grabbing promotion opportunities. It’s inevitable to remain competitive in today’s job market, regardless of industry and collar.

But how to grow professionally? In this article, we’ll talk about different examples that can help you turn knowledge into promotional opportunities that help you achieve your career goals.

What is Professional Growth?

Growing professionally is a form of self-improvement, in which you apply your newly learnt skills or experiences to your job, making a positive impact on your current career pursuit. Broadening your horizons like this enables you to take on more responsibility, expand your knowledge, and understand new job trends. This type of development also shows that you’ve got ambition, humility, self-awareness, and tenacity.

Simple examples of growing professionally may be:

• Learning a new skill related to work or gaining more experience and knowledge
• Taking the lead on a project at work
• Volunteering at an organisation
• Attending professional training courses to gain new skills or qualifications

The terms personal development and personal growth are often used one instead of the other, but they differ. Development is the process of learning new skills, earning certifications, and going to training. Growth is the result of what you achieve thanks to the application of those new skills.

10 Career Growth Strategies

There are several ways you can pursue betterment in your job or career. Below are several steps you can achieve to undergo personal development which you can eventually turn into growth.

1. Learn The Art of Goal-Setting

When talking about professional development tips, it’s important to start from the basics. Setting detailed and achievable goals can help you take actionable steps and follow through. The idea behind goal-setting is to outline how you want to advance your career. A goal can be anything from something grandiose, like earning an industry certification, increasing your work responsibilities and duties, to something simple, like watching more DIY videos related to your craft after work.

As long as you have something to work towards, and know how to get closer to the results, you’re on the right track.

2. Explore Opportunities

You don’t always have to sign up for after-work classes or on-site training. Often, taking advantage of the opportunities surrounding you at work can be extremely valuable for upward career mobility and advancements. Let’s say you work closely with another team whose job is different to yours but close enough to share some of the same skills and new ones. Chip in, try yourself out if you can. First, it can help you grow your skill set and you may even end up taking on new responsibilities, broaden your professional network, and boost your earning potential.

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3. Talk To Your Professional Circles

There are many simple ways to grow professionally. You don’t have to dig deep into industry connections, networking events, or professional associations if you don’t feel like it. Often, it’s just enough to build a closer work relationship with your coworkers and managers. The latter can inform you about your career aspirations. As a matter of fact, your manager’s job is to foster your professional development for the betterment of the company. If they know that you want to take on new roles and challenges, they will be more likely to grant you the opportunity.

Your manager and coworkers may also help you with advice about available training courses to gain new experiences or new skills.

4. Professional Networking

Why not up your communication skills while you’re at it? Again, if you don’t want to join associations or organisations, you can still greatly benefit from other people seeing your work and efforts. 

Something simple, like joining a work-related Facebook group can put you in the right environment, offering the right kind of support and constructive criticism. Networking also allows you to meet new people who may connect you with others, recommend courses, training, and so on.

5. Choose a Mentor

Mentoring is a great way to learn and get precise performance feedback. From professional to personal advice, having a mentor around will help you better understand new technologies or the routines that help you master new skills. They will also answer your questions, listen to your concerns, and give you new perspectives. 

An experienced coworker may often be the best mentor, but you can always ask your supervisors or other colleagues about good candidates.

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6. Specialise

There are jobs and careers that require you to have meticulous, specialised skills, and niche knowledge. Mastering everything that’s a part of your work from older to the newer technologies, processes, and regulations, you will have countless opportunities to showcase your capabilities and expertise.

Seminars, educational programs, on-the-job training are great specialisation approaches, but it’s also important to research your industry, stay current on trends, and learn even more about your area of expertise through leisure activities (watching YouTube videos, for example).

7. Track Your Progress

You don’t necessarily have to dabble with key performance indicators and all that jazz. Rely on your workplace performance reviews to see whether you are meeting expectations and where’s room where you can improve. 

Growing is exciting but if you don’t exactly know whether you are making progress, it’s easy to feel doubt and frustration. That’s why tracking your progress and reviewing your accomplishments can help you go forward.

Ask your manager for a review and also take the time to voice your own goals.

8. Try Leadership Development

How about leading a project, taking up a mentoring role, or becoming a manager at your job? A great motivator for personal development is pursuing a leadership role. Learning leadership skills is a great way to advance your professional growth, arming you with soft skills that can make you a more effective leader.

This can help you make your team more effective, give you another perspective to your job and industry, and will help you with becoming a better communicator overall.

9. Improve Your Communication

When asked “how to grow your career” from already successful coworkers or experts, they will often quickly point out the importance of having conversations with the right people the right way.

Professional success is often a direct result of successful workplace communications. Business communication, in the form of training courses, videos, and more, can help you improve your communication skills, opening new doors for your professional growth.

You may learn ways to improve the discussions you are having with clients or colleagues. It can make you a better conversation partner over the phone or in person. You can get a better understanding of what someone means through their body language, and learn to control your own.

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10. Learn, Learn, and Learn

Advancing your education is a great idea, no matter whether you want to work in a different field or want to move forward in your current career. Getting a degree can help you boost professional development that translates into self-improvement.

Apart from writing a better, more impressive resume, getting a degree directly translates into better wages. According to the US Bureau of LAbor Statistics (BLS), people with a bachelor’s degree earn at least $500 dollars (430 euros) more a week on average than those with a high-school diploma. 

Professional Growth and Development: Creating a Growth Plan

A PGP, or professional growth and development plan is a job-specific professional development plan that you follow. It helps you set your own goals and align them with work standards, certifications, and so on. You design the action plan, and regularly document your path to assess whether you are achieving your goals. 

1. Determine Your Current Status

First thing’s first, you must see where you stand in your career at the very moment. Is your career path sluggish, or are you dominating all employee evaluation tests? Assess whether your professional development is heading in the right direction. Are you getting promoted? Are you getting more responsibilities? Do you enjoy the work you’re doing and do you like the people who work there?

Try to answer these questions and do your best to determine your weaknesses, strengths, and areas where you could improve. Completing a SWOT test can definitely help.

2. Define The Necessary Changes

After pinpointing the areas of improvement, you can see what are the most important things you want to change. It can be anything from showing up on time (especially punctuality is pivotal, like in German work culture), from learning a new skill that will help you in your advancement. For instance, it may also be learning Dutch in the Netherlands, even if English is enough for doing your job.

3. Recognise Your Most Valuable Skills

From time management to hard, soft, or great communication skills, there are things that you can transfer to any role or industry. These can help you plan your future career moves and enable you to communicate your strengths to your current managers or future employers.

Once you list out these skills, you can determine the next gaps in your development process.

4. Look for Gaps

Take a good look at your job and your knowledge about it. There are probably details, technical skills, or other aspects that you might need to work on a bit to become better. If you are looking for a new job (or a dream job), take a look at the available vacancies and assess which skills you require. 

See what you are missing and research how you can bridge these gaps. Consider what you can leverage, from online courses to mentorships, and educational training. Talk with your coworkers or managers about growth opportunities and tell them your aspirations. They may also be able to help.

5. Set Your Goals and a Timeline

After laying down the foundation for your professional growth path, you can start the journey with setting achievable goals. You can use several methods (like the SMART method) or just follow common sense and your instincts. The goals should be realistic and detailed. Vague statements like “making more money.”

Instead, set a goal like finishing a training course within the year. And the focus isn’t just on the course, but on the timeframe as well. Giving yourself a stat-by date can help you stay on track. Do this both with your short- and long-term goals. Also, set a deadline to complete the task to help you keep yourself motivated.

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6. Follow Trough

Once all the preparations are done, it’s time to start completing your goals in the given timeframe. Don’t get discouraged if you fall short or miss a deadline. Sometimes, life simply happens, and there’s little to do about it. Remember your long-term goals and the possible achievements, which will keep you motivated.

Journaling can be a great way to keep track of your thoughts during the development process. Write down your wins, motivations, doubts, setbacks, and difficulties as well. Don’t forget to mention how you managed to overcome challenges, which will serve as strength and motivation to keep on pushing. 

7. Revise Your Plan if Needed

As we’ve mentioned, sometimes, life happens. You might find yourself in a place where you need to pause with your plans, or you might need to re-evaluate your short-term goals. Revise your plan if required, but never keep your eye off the big picture. And if you run out of goals, you can always set new ones. Personal and professional growth are ongoing processes, which never end.

Let Robin Help You With Your Career Growth Strategies

Hopefully, these professional growth examples have given you the motivation to devise your own plan, even if you are dissatisfied with your current job. Often, growth starts with making the decision of moving abroad to work. If that’s the case with you, we’re here to help. 

At Robin, we don’t just connect you with jobs. We make sure the entire journey feels seamless and stress-free. From finding the role that matches your skills and ambitions to connecting you with a company that arranges accommodation and transport to work, we handle the details so you can focus on what matters most: building your future. Wherever your career path leads, we’ll walk with you every step of the way.

If you’re to take the first step, feel free to browse our currently available vacancies. And if you need more info, leave us a message.