You might not know this, but every job has 4 stages. It doesn’t matter the title, the company, or the industry. It’s the life-cycle that you go through from when you first start a job and everything is new, to the end when you’re preparing to leave. You start the cycle again with every new position you take for perpetuity, or at least until you retire.
A smart person (that’s you) wants to leverage every job to her advantage to MAXIMIZE career advancement opportunities. Let’s dive right in!
Stage 1: The Newbie
This stage is that onboarding/training period when you start a new job. You’re solely focused on how to do the job and getting clear on your expectations. When you’re at a new company, you’re also getting to know the people on your team. Personally, I hate this stage. I’m too impatient. I just want to hurry up and know everything, be able to showcase my skills, and solve problems on my own. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. If you try to rush this phase incorrectly, you may struggle to perform later down the line and/or rub people the wrong way.
By the way, The Newbie stage applies whether it’s a new job in a new company or a new role in your existing company. If you got a promotion on your existing team, you might think ‘well I’m not a newbie, I’ve been working towards this all along.’ In fact, that thinking could be what starts you off on the wrong foot.
Remember, you only need about 70% of the qualifications to get a new job or promotion. That means you still need time to learn the rest!
Stage 2: The Performer
Alright, you’re 90% or more done with your training and expected to handle a lot more on your own. In this stage, you’re able to demonstrate your strengths more frequently and establish consistency. People know your style and personality. You’re still going to make mistakes and errors but as long as you’re receptive to feedback you will continue to progress.
Stage 3: The Plateau
At this point you’ve continued to shine on your team and are handling many more high impact and high visibility activities. You’re consistently adding value and have become a go-to person on your team. Basically, you get sh*t done! This usually means it’s time for a promotion.
Stage 4: Ready to Go!
During the Plateau stage, you begin to realize that you’ve gone as far as you can with this role. Even as the go-to person the types of things you’re asked to handle have become mundane and no longer challenge you. In short, your growth is minimal or non-existent at this point. You realize that to continue to advance your career, you’ll have to do something else.
Ideally, you never want to get to the Ready to Go stage. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. There are 3 ways you might end up in the Ready to Go stage:
Plateau to Ready to Go
= you haven’t got promoted
Performer to Ready to Go
= you’re struggling to improve
Newbie to Ready to Go
= this role isn’t for you
There’s a lot of reasons why any of those 3 situations can happen. Too many to explain in one article. But, I often work with women who get stuck in The Performer stage because they’re unsure how to grow further. Sometimes it’s because they’re unfamiliar with professional development, but usually it’s because they aren’t having effective development conversations with their boss. Eventually, they’re so discouraged and feel like they won’t advance in their company so they take a new position – usually just a lateral move, only to get stuck in the same stage at the next place.
To maximize your career advancement and earning potential you need to leverage your position during the Plateau stage.
Using a Career Coach for your professional development not only will help you move through the stages more quickly and effectively, but you will actually feel more fulfilled while doing it.
Schedule a 30-minute FREE consultation to discuss where you are in your current position and how I can help you advance through the stages.
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