Much is written about reinvention and reinventing yourself to re-invigorate or even reignite your career. Well, the advice is often simple but implementing it is not always easy! In many cases a complete reinvention takes three years to develop full traction in the new career. In my own case I have completely changed five careers and I have witnessed the three-years of blood, sweat, and tears before knowing if the change was going to work for me! Often, people cannot wait that long before discovering that the new career is NOT for them!

A simpler–and easier–way to reinvent is to reinvent your career or your job! What does mean? It simply means that you redefine what you do on a day-to-day basis to reenergize your work. It is much easier than your reinventing yourself and it takes much less time. In this economic downturn making a preemptive move to redefine what you do may, in fact, be a smarter way to keeping your current job! If you agree, here are the guidelines:

1. Do a careful audit of what you do and what needs really doing. Often, people keep doing what they did before to continue their activities and pretty soon they become part of the scene! If you look at how you create value in what you do and extract those parts that provide value to the next link in the value chain, then you have identified the pith of your work. Doing this with priority can often energize your work. Find meaning behind what you do!
2. Approach your boss and discuss the different aspects of your work. Then develop an understanding that you would change your priorities to accommodate the high-value work and slowly wean from “busy work.” If your boss agrees with your assessment you are on to the next step of actually getting assigned to that work!
3. In these tough economic times those who are not doing high-value added work are going to be the first to be shown the door. If you are ensconced in the right work mix, then it is less likely that you would be on the layoff list.
4. Surround yourself with those who exhibit positive attitude and energy. At any place of work there are always the whiners. In tough economic times these whiners (Debbie-the-downers!) often congregate and are the source of vicious rumors that spread quickly through their own network. Stay away from such naysayer and surround yourself with those with a healthy outlook.
5. Volunteer for jobs that are not getting done but those which are essential to the company’s success. These jobs are often customer-centric activities that do not get measured in many departments because their job is to make the widgets regardless of what the customer really wants. By taking on such important jobs you have made your company more market worthy and customer-centric.
6. Take credit for your work by sending memos and acknowledging others who helped you achieve success. Send these emails to the higher-ups so that others know your contributions. Do not just assume that because you volunteered and did some thankless job that you’ll be given credit. You must claim it!
7. Look for work that is similar to what you do in departments that are closer to the customer. For example, if you are a Failure Analysis technician, taking in the reports of failed parts from the customer, see if you can work in the customer support department that talks to the customer to solve their problems on an ongoing basis. Even in tough time customers are not going to disappear and a company cannot afford to ignore customer-facing needs.
8. Make yourself visible by attending company events and where customer-facing events are held. Once you are seen by the executives as someone who is doing a customer-facing job, you are not likely to be “surplused.”
9. Come up new ways of doing your job and share that knowledge with others to get them to support you. Once you develop a coterie of followers you’ll be seen as a thought leader and are less likely to be “surplused.”
10. Act and look powerful. If you keep positive attitude others will assume that you are doing something important. This is called the law of attraction and it works well. Keep smiling, even when you do not know what you are doing!

Re-energizing your job in tough times is not that difficult. You just need to adjust your attitude to transform your perspective about your job and it is quite easy to do as you just saw. Now, go and do it!

Bravo, Katie!

Now, what about you?

We, as professionals, come to similar realizations throughout our career. Many do not admit that they have reached their end of shelf life at their job, as they get growingly comfortable in their own situation. A job becomes stale, a career becomes stalled, or one fails to see beyond the next promotion to where their career is headed. It is easy to be seduced by the “security” of your job, the ongoing increases in salary, and even an occasional promise of a promotion to keep your nose to the grindstone. Over the past decade, the job market has become increasingly volatile and jobs are getting re-defined, Banglored, and even eliminated resulting in an increasingly nervous job market. So, what is one to do to keep their career momentum on track and to keep themselves productively employed?

The following prescription may help those who are determined to keep their career on track and their job engagement fresh:

1. Look back in your current job and see how you have grown in the past two or so years. If you are not getting a new perspective and are not learning something new every day, then you are not fresh in your job anymore; you have reached the end of your shelf life.
2. Do not confuse the annual reviews and the raises you get with the learning and growth that you derive from your job. If you do what is assigned to you with your eyes closed, then your company is obviously impressed by your performance. So, merely getting high marks on your annual review does not mean that you are deriving the personal and professional growth that is critical to your ongoing marketability.
3. Look around and see what opportunities your company is missing out on and identify how you can re-scope your job or even re-define it, by sitting down with your manager and making it work for you. If your manager is not willing to give you that latitude, find other areas in your company that can use your initiative and skills to make a better name for itself in the marketplace. In such endeavors, having a first-hand customer input can be a selling point.
4. Look at the job openings in your industry and see how your competitors are filling similar positions. If comparable jobs require skills that you do not have, then you must learn those skills in your current job and make yourself more marketable.
5. Write your resume to address the skills that are required at other companies and then seek assignments that make those entries a reality. This is a proactive approach to career management.
6. Once you have identified the work that you want to be doing to continue your growth at your own company, it can take several months to realize that assignment. Each passing month makes you that much more stale in your current job. So, do not wait.
7. If you are gutsy, go ahead and position yourself beyond what is logically feasible. So, if you are manager in your job with enough savvy, but not the required experience, to fill a director-level position, go ahead and apply to where such an opportunity exists. Even if you do not meet all the requirements, neutralize the objections by presenting in your cover letter, forward-looking job skills that you bring to the position and ace that opportunity.

   In one example, my client, a senior IT professional, who was not quite “ready” for a CIO’s job, sent her resume with a cover letter addressing how the emerging trend of Software As a Service (SaaS) was going to change IT’s role in the next two years. She was able to articulate how IT’s role was going to shift with this change and how the company needed to prepare itself to empower the line and business managers to deal with this reality. She got invited to the interviews and the selection process is currently underway. Without such a message in the cover letter, she may have been passed over for the selection process because she lacked the number of years required at the executive position.

8. Do not let your “friends” undermine you in your pursuits. If you believe that you have the abilities to claim a job that is a step up from where you are now, go ahead and claim the job. You’d be surprised how, having a single-minded focus and determination can conspire to deliver the outcomes that you desire.
9. The only limit to how far you can go is your own limiting beliefs. So, if you are feeling stuck in your current position, check your limiting beliefs.
10. Do not be afraid to fail or get a setback. This is a good sign; it means that you have discovered when you have gone too far. As Emerson said, “Your reach should be greater than your grasp.” Do not confuse a setback with an obstacle; a setback can be a stepping stone. Only when you give up trying after a setback it becomes a failure.

Managing your own career today is mostly in your hands and you must proactively look for opportunities that may not be apparent to many around you. You must act as an entrepreneur in today’s environment and realize what others are missing.

Katie Couric’s evening news is not doing very well these days, after the initial fanfare wore off. Yet, she continues to re-invent how the evening news can be presented to the audience, with a soupcon of raillery and entertainment. Is she going to bounce back in her ratings? No one knows, but Katie is having the time of her life. And, so can you!

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