What's the ROI on Your Career Investment?

CNN Money has an interesting piece on the ROI (return on investment) of changing careers. They add up the costs and benefits in investing in yourself so that you can make a career change into a better-paying field and then apply investing calculations to the effort to see what the return is. It's an interesting take on a standard career decision people ask: is it worth it for me to change careers?

But I'd like to look at the ROI on your career in a different way. Suppose you already have a career you like and that you just want to make more of it. Consider the following returns on these efforts to grow your career:

• Networking efforts (including lunches, gas costs, time volunteering on boards, etc.)


• Additional education


• Extra training and seminars


• Time spent on driving that key project to success


• Money spent on nice clothes, make-up, health clubs, etc. to make you attractive


• Extracurricular activities (especially work-related ones) that make you more well-rounded and likeable

Given that your career is your most valuable financial asset and that taking specific actions to grow it can mean millions of extra dollars over the course of your career, it's easy to see how a couple thousand dollars a year can have a HUGE return to your lifetime earnings. Of course you'll need to spend strategically and with specific purposes in mind (you can't simply justify wasteful spending by saying it will somehow help your career), but given the huge upside and the relatively small cost of the "investments", it's reasonable to say that the ROI will be high indeed.

So, given that, what are you doing to invest in your career?

Comments

[Rich Uncle El]

Well I have been registering for as many internal and external training courses my employer offers. I also joined toastmasters about two years ago and this has helped me with my communications skills, as I would like to transition to a manager position/role in the future.

[Squeezer]

I've been working on getting more Microsoft certifications. I recently became an MCITP (Microsoft Certified IT Professional) in Windows 7 after passing 2 exams. Hopefully I will be able to take more as time, work, and schooling allows. I am also in college attempting to complete my Bachelor's degree. I'm hoping that the combination of the degree plus Microsoft certifications will lead to higher pay.