Top Seven (7) Rules to BREAK to Achieve Career Success
Rule # 1: Only apply for jobs that exactly match your qualifications and experience. If I had only applied for opportunities that exactly matched my qualifications, I wouldn’t have had 90 percent of the experiences I’ve had throughout my career. “Fake it till you make it” doesn’t mean lying but rather learning how to accentuate what’s key to your audience and withhold what’s not. Your potential employer doesn’t need to know your special events “clients” were your best friends from college, or that start-up business you did social media marketing for was your cousin’s new venture. Equally, start thinking of job requirements as “suggestions” and not mandatory qualifications. Say and do whatever’s necessary to get your foot in the door. Count your two summer internships toward your “experience in XYZ field” to come up with the required “number” someone’s looking for. As long as you are not lying, “omit” all the details and facts that really don’t matter. What helps you get the job or opportunity is having confidence in what you’ve done and how you can help someone today and in the future. It’s not about perfectly matching some words on a piece of paper.
Rule # 2: Networking means getting to know the people “at the top.” Networking is about building relationships with people at all levels of your organization or industry. Everyone may not have access to senior leaders but anyone can use a 360 degree networking approach to create allies in the most unlikely places. It was an entry-level colleague who passed along the name of a PR executive who helped me getting hired at AT&T. Additionally, it was someone in NBC’s Page Program (a prestigious television network “externship”) who connected me to resources that some senior entertainment publicists couldn’t access. Real networking is connecting to everyone you encounter, and remembering that sometimes your peers, or those who lack a prestigious title, may be the very people who are most likely and most willing to introduce you to the ‘movers and shakers’ who do.
Rule # 3 Office politics only take place in the workplace. Your ability to climb the proverbial corporate ladder may have little to do with what goes on inside the office and everything to do with what happens outside the workplace. If you are a runner and discover that the vice president of your division jogs in the park every morning at 6:30 a.m., guess what time you should be jogging there too? Perhaps signing up for that volunteer event this weekend that your president or general manager is also going to do, may be the perfect way to get hours of uninterrupted “face time” with a senior decision maker. Getting an “A” in office politics requires you to do your homework, think out-of-the-box, and do lots of extra credit assignments outside and not within the workplace.
Rule # 4: Becoming an entrepreneur means instantly swapping security for the unknown. The best and perhaps most effective way to create a successful business is to actually start it while working for someone else. Balancing your full-time gig and a client or two on the side is the perfect way to test entrepreneurial waters. It can also teach you how to manage multiple priorities while maintaining the safety net of a steady pay-check. Instead of plunging head first into a new business, the smartest way to become an entrepreneur is to start slow and build as go. Eventually you’ll have to release the life raft and swim into unchartered waters. Starting your business as a side hustle that grows over time may save you time, money, and the headaches that often come with starting a business venture from scratch all at once.
Check out livingonpurposeproject.com on this month for the rest of my top seven rules to break; compelling conversations; and suggestions to create your own rules for success. Think of one rule you can break TODAY to help expand your life and career options and opportunities.