Control Your Career By Creating A Job Position
Usually, people just wait to be promoted, or move to a higher position at a different company when they want to move up in their career. A few days ago, a friend of mine told me about his new (creative) attempt to move up the corporate ladder at his company. What he did was create a brand new job description for the job he wanted to do for the company. That’s right - he created his own title, essential job functions, listed the needed relevant skills, and made his own compensation figures. He then handed it right in to the boss.
My first reaction was - “you’re nuts, I’ve never heard of someone doing that”. Apparently the boss felt the same.
While the boss didn’t agree to it, it did start a dialogue about his role in the company, and we both expect him to see some sort of promotion out of it.
Brand Yourself
This goes back to a current topic being discussed quite a bit on the web: how important it is to brand yourself in today’s world. You create value from the clarity of your brand identity. This can mean updating your social networking profiles, or, this could mean letting others in your organization know about your achievements and progress. These days you need to be resourceful and bring your true value to the table in a clear manner if you wish to move up and be noticed by management.
A few tips to keep in mind before trying this out:
- Ask yourself if the department and company are doing well right now, and can afford to give you a raise.
- Find a day when your boss appears to be in a good mood. Nothing kills a raise faster than an automatic “NO!” day.
- Be certain you haven’t slacked off for the last year, to avoid appearing avaricious.
- Research the salary range for your position. You can use quick wizards like Salary.com or Dice.com to find out.
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January 21st, 2008 at 4:38 am
Great tips - especially the one about asking when the boss is in a good mood. I have had employees ask me for favours when I’m right in the middle of some sort of crisis at work and I usually feel more like slapping them than giving them what they want.
Sometimes, I think people forget that bosses are human and have feelings too.
January 21st, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Branding anywhere is important. I don’t think anyone though ever got wealthy by working for someone else. It’s fine to get experience, but the real wealth is made by those that strike out and do on their own. One of my businesses is a resident agent service in Nevada and I see entrepreneurs of all kinds come and go. The smartest start off working for others for security then slowly develop part time gigs like blogging and whatever other ideas they have.
The internet is such a fantastic place to grow and network that if you just have a site in and keep adding content, opportunities just come to you.
Michael,
I agree. But in all fairness, we need to count in the stress along the way. Some people just prefer to go the corporate way and grow step by step with some security.
The whole model that is based on however, is slowly failing, with corporate jobs having no more security than small biz jobs. This will be interesting to see how that changes aspirations for young people. Already, the highest percentage ever of youth are interested in entrepreneurialism - obviously those kids have noticed this shift and reacted.
January 21st, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Hi Pinny, I popped over to say hello to find a whole trove of treasures here! You’ve got some very good resources recommendations.
You’re now on my radar.
Cheers,
Ellesse
Ellesee,
Thank you for your kind comments. I thought the same about your blog! Guess we’ll see each other around :).
January 21st, 2008 at 9:14 pm
You bet!
Cheers,
Ellesse
January 30th, 2008 at 11:52 am
[…] So says Life of an Internet Entrepreneur blogger Pinny Cohen, who relates the tale of a friend who created a brand new job description for his current position: That’s right – he created his own title and essential job functions, listed the needed […]