Career Guidance: What You Don't Know and Your Boss Won't Tell You, Excerpt #2, Hard Work Is Not Enough

Here's an excerpt from the great book (read my review here) What You Don't Know and Your Boss Won't Tell You by Pam Lenehan. This one also comes from Chapter Two of the book which is titled Manage Your Own Career: No One Else Will:

Hard Work Is Not Enough

The two most important things to understand about your career are that you must be very good at what you do and you must work incredibly hard. All the other advice that comes next is what you need to do after you have done these two critical things.

However, good work and long hours alone are not enough. One woman learned this very early in her career.

• “I got laid off my first job after 15 months. They had hired too many people and when business fell off, they fired two-thirds of my class. It was a rude awakening. I had gotten great performance reviews, but other people were better at promoting themselves, so they were better known.”

The key, of course, is to have people be aware of your work without making it look like you are working too hard on getting noticed.  One of the best ways to get noticed is to have your firm’s customers weigh in on your service.

Takeaways: Being good at what you do and working hard are the most important parts of your job, but they are not enough to get you promoted. You need to be sure your work is noticed by others through subtle marketing efforts aimed at letting your boss and other people in the organization understand the value of your work.

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Again, great advice from this book. That's why I rated it so highly.

I've found this to be true in my career. You can't just do great work, you have to (subtly) let people know what you've accomplished. Don't assume "everyone knows" or else you'll be doing yourself (and your career) a great disservice.

Promoting yourself/your accomplishments is also a key part of the great book Career Intensity. For more information on this important subject, see Review: Career Intensity by David Lorenzo as well as Free Money Finance Interview with David Lorenzo, Author of Career Intensity, Part 1.

Remember, your career is your most valuable financial asset and managing it correctly can earn you millions of dollars in extra income throughout your lifetime.

These two books will help you make the most of your career -- that's why I recommend you checking them out.

Click here to read excerpt #3.

Comments

[Tanya]

I am about to start working and I love these posts. I am pretty antisocial, so I see I'm going to have to break out of this for my first real job and start networking and making contacts at work (and outside of it too).

Cheers!