Progressing or Proving Yourself? Use the 3 Skills That Boost Your Career Prospects

Last Updated on April 4, 2024

When you are in the midst of planning your career, you may worry about the overarching goals. Preparing for a career, for many people, involves going to college and dedicating the first third of their lives to learning about it and then progressing up the career ladder. But you need to think about boosting your career in a more holistic sense. What does it really take to boost your career prospects? 

Taking a Course

Even if you have a job, you should hold yourself accountable and focus on development. You can go down a typical business route and invest in the skills that you think will supplement your abilities, but you can also benefit from less obvious courses. For example, if you have a burning passion to learn a language, going to French classes will always give you an opportunity to develop yourself in other ways. Of course, it takes extreme proficiency in a language to work within the language sectors, however, this is something that you can put on your resume to show employers you are dedicated to self-development. 

Taking On Challenges

If you want to show a boss that you are ready for the next level, you’ve got to set up and take on a challenge. It can be a perfect opportunity to grow your knowledge base and skills, which can also help you stand out amongst your colleagues. In terms of business progression, when you are climbing up the career ladder, you need to give yourself the opportunity to take on more responsibilities. Outside of a working environment, taking on extracurricular challenges, whether it’s volunteering at a local food bank or brushing up on your personal development skills if you can show employers you are not afraid of stepping outside of your comfort zone, they are more likely to take a chance on you. 

Because traditional skills may help someone in the job they are applying for, but if an employer is looking for someone that can grow with the company, they are more likely to take a punt on someone that is constantly challenging themselves, meaning that you will become a more valuable employee and can lead to promotions or amazing feedback from colleagues and supervisors. 

Improving Your Communication Skills

Strong communication is one of those oft-spoken components of a confident entrepreneur or colleague. Look at your email messages and see how passive they may be in tone. But also, think about how you are presenting yourself because if you want to be a strong communicator, you have to start thinking about being clear, to the point, and also how you interact with people inside and outside of a work environment. 

If you want to improve on spoken interactions, you could always ask for feedback from employees and colleagues. Feedback is so important because it can be a little bit close to home, however, if we are someone that is willing to take on criticism and use it to be a better person, this is also a vital aspect of being better in terms of your career prospects. Because your boss will always want to find people that they can work with on a personal level, not just those that have the skills.