“Golden Icons Career Corner (GICC) is an avenue for providing useful tips, resources, and advise to assist with career advancement and achievement of a successful and happy profession.”
People often complain about missing promotion opportunities at work despite being the brains behind the success of the department or project. However in today’s corporate world, being good at your job is no longer the only prerequisite for getting ahead in your career. If the decision makers in your company, including those in your department are not aware of your contributions or don’t even know about you, you may likely miss out on opportunities to move up the ladder.
In this article, we will be sharing some strategies on how to maximize your exposure at work by improving your visibility within the organization, which coupled with your excellent work ethics, competence at work and good performance, will enable you to be one of the first few within your company to be considered for opportunities when they arise.
Radiate Confidence in Speech and Appearance: When you exhume confidence in speech, appearance and composure as a professional, you will surely attract respect and whether you believe it or not, people will respect you for who you are. Also, a confident worker tends to stand out in the workplace, and are often promoted more easily because management believes they can stand up to their assigned roles and responsibilities, defend their stance and promote the goals of the department in a way that is aligned with the corporate goals.
Always Speak Up in Meetings: As a professional, you will always have to attend meetings in your organization, which could include regular departmental staff meetings, project meetings, or update meetings. Whatever the nature of the meeting is, do not take the back seat and stay passive during such gatherings. It’s an opportunity for you to share your ideas and view points in the most confident and intelligent manner. But most importantly, these meetings also give you a great opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge and increase your visibility within your team or department. If an agenda is shared before the meeting, make sure you read it beforehand and think about the questions you want to ask or the points you want to make, and such preparation will also help you to speak with confidence.
Develop an Excellent Working Relationship With Your Boss: Some people have great bosses who are passionate about helping their subordinates grow in their chosen careers, while others have bosses that care less. Regardless of which side of the coin you fall into, it is always a good idea to develop an open relationship with your boss and talk periodically about your work, career goals and availability of options to move up within your company, outside of your periodic formal evaluation process. This time should be used to discuss what is going on within the organization as a whole, and finding out about other opportunities to increase your contributions to the company.
Request for High-Visibility Projects: A lot of companies have projects that require them pulling resources from several departments, with some having a more organizational-wide impact than others. For example, an Enterprise Resource Planning implementation will fall into this category and if your organization needs people to volunteer or be part of such a project, it will do you more good to request to be part of such assignments. Not only will you gain more experience with your involvement in such projects, but you will also gain more visibility at the enterprise level, and who knows, that might just be your next opportunity to move up the ladder within the organization. So, the bottom line is – don’t wait for your manager to assign or research such projects for you – ask to work on such projects when you find out about them in your organization. They’ll also help you build relationships with people in other departments of your organization, and you might be able to learn other career tips from exposure to key decision makers such as senior managers and executives in your organization.
Shoot for Highly Visible Job Roles or Positions: If you have an option to select between a position that requires you working for the big shots in your company and it meets your career goals, then always go for that position rather than one that makes you be a back burner in your company. Most of the time, senior management does not really have an opportunity to know everyone in the company and it’s only those around them or those they see every now and then that comes to their mind when considering who to recommend for that next project or position.
Being a confident speaker is however a fundamental quality that will help you increase your work visibility. However, not everyone is that confident when it comes to speaking in front of others.
In order to increase your visibility at work though, you may need to work on your self-confidence & learn how to be a more engaging communicator, so that you feel more comfortable being at the center of attention when speaking during meetings. Also, make sure you read books on public speaking and you can actually start with baby steps by giving presentations at small team meetings including religious programs. If you live in the United States for example, you can consider joining a speaking group like ‘Toastmasters,’ a program that gives you an opportunity to practice your speaking skills in front of others on a regular basis.
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