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Monthly Archives : March 2018

Home/2018/March

Becoming a Standout Employee: 7 Tips for Boosting Your Profile at Work (Part 2)

23 March 2018Mark CanavarroUncategorized No comment

In our first post about standing out in the workplace, we talked with a series of experts about what it takes to boost your value in a genuine, legitimate way.

The advice we received was on point. Self-evaluation is a key component to increasing your value; know where you’re weak and hone those areas until they become assets.

Offer to take on a few extra responsibilities and, at the same time, offer your help in situations where a colleague may be too afraid to ask for it. Another tip for private contractors – build your brand through a systematic leveraging of your expertise.

However, helping yourself stand out isn’t limited to these four tips. We received an overwhelming response from HR reps, career coaches and other professionals who had plenty to say about how you can increase your profile the right way.

Be Confident, Even When You’re Not

Confidence issues plague most employees at one time or another, whether they’re starting a new job or their first career.

There tends to be a mindset in which you think everyone around you knows you’re a fraud and is waiting for you to fail.

Matthew Kerr, a career adviser and hiring manager at Resume Genius, says sometimes you have to employ the time-tested “fake-it-’til-you-make-it” mentality.

“This old adage can be surprisingly effective when properly utilized. Rather than stressing yourself out wondering how you can become confident at work, pretend that you are,” Kerr said. “Adopt a mantle of confidence and exude it in everything you do. Confidence in the workplace is by far and wide the easiest and most effective way to stand out.”

Offer Your Input at the Right Time

Your ideas will only speak for themselves if you tell other people about them. Utilize planning and strategizing sessions to share your ideas, Kerr said.

Confidence plays a key role here; without it, you’ll be too timid to pitch your idea. Are you an expert in an area in which your managers are seeking input? Then pitch with confidence. There’s no shame in standing by your experience, even if it means offering up a divergent opinion.

“Sometimes it can be difficult to voice your opinions or ideas when they go against the grain – but that’s one of the best ways to stand out,” Kerr said. “Even if your idea isn’t used, you will create a new discussion and perhaps be the source of solutions that otherwise might have been overlooked.”

If you can’t muster up the fortitude to present in front of a group, do a one-on-one with a supervisor behind closed doors, Kerr said.

Know Why You’re Doing Something Instead of Just Doing It

It’s easier to listen to instructions and do them without putting thought to the reason behind the ask.

While this certainly makes life easy in the short-term, it can lead to disillusionment if you aren’t careful. Three or four years down the road you’ll get tired of robotic obedience and you’ll be left with frustration instead of satisfaction.

Jennifer Braganza, founder of training and leadership firm Exponential Success, said you can impress your bosses if you show you’re just as interested in the “why” as you are in the “how”.

“It will allow you to produce a better product if you understand what is trying to be achieved,” Braganza said. “Sometimes people don’t know what they really want.  If you ask the right questions, you can actually help them figure it out and avoid the rework of doing things over and over again.”

The key here is that you’re asking “why” because you want to see and grasp the bigger picture, not because you want to challenge whether you should do the task or project.

Don’t Like Your Job? Exercise Situational Awareness

Career coach Sara Young Wang says the ideal way to stand out at your place of employment is to do what you love.

However, we all know many of us are not in the positions we’ve dreamed of being in. So, Wang said, take a moment to think about how your dissatisfaction is reflected in the way you act throughout the day. These moment-by-moment micro-cues could be holding you back and deterring your ability to stand out.

“Developing more mindfulness of how you respond to requests, how you take feedback/criticism, how you interact with colleagues/bosses in times of stress, etc., allows you to perform your job from a calmer, clearer and more grounded place,” Wang said. “You can stand out as someone who is mature, thoughtful, receptive to feedback/learning and an employee who can be trusted to represent the company. This can contribute to a high potential for promotion.”

 

Part 1

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Becoming a Standout Employee: 7 Tips for Boosting Your Profile at Work (Part 1)

21 March 2018Mark Canavarroworkplace culture No comment

In a perfect world, we’d go to work each day standing out for the right reasons and without much effort.

We’ve all known the coworker who tries too hard to rise above the pack. Their methods often create friction and distance them from the rest of the team.

None of us wants to be that employee; standing out is just as much a matter of being genuine as it is about knowing the right people and knowing exactly what to say and do around them.

We reached out to experts across the nation to find out what you can do to be a standout employee without alienating yourself among your coworkers. This post is the first of two that provide seven different tips for standing out.

 

 

 

Grade Yourself and Make a Plan

Ross Wehner, a career coach and founder of WehnerEd, said a mentor of his challenged him to list all the traits of a professional he could think of then rate himself in those areas according to the following scale:

  • 1 – Needs improvement
  • 2 – Satisfactory
  • 3 – You exemplify this quality

Taking stock of his “skill” level in each of the professional traits he listed helped Wehner see where he was weak, where he was strong and where he was mediocre. He recommends having a mentor or colleague rate you according to the same traits.

“Evaluate your ratings and those from others and identify the areas in which you have the most margin for improvement,” Wehner said.

Once you’ve got all the data, make a six-month plan that will help you` get all those areas to a “3”.

“Review your evaluation process every six months or so and constantly be improving what you’re worst at,” Wehner said. “Before too long your worst skill will be better than others’ best skills.”

Your efforts to improve yourself will start to emerge in the workplace; the change will be noticeable.

Take Advantage of Opportunities for Extra Work

Alexis Zanger, a senior marketing manager at Aegis Software Corp., says the age-old recommendation to volunteer for extra work is a time-tested way to stand out.

“Step up to take on extra tasks and more responsibility without having to be asked,” Zanger said. “Showing initiative is a trait that corporate executives look for in the next leader of a team.”

Be careful with this one, though. There’s a fine line between being eager for more work and being eager to please your bosses by taking on more work. One is genuine and the other is dangerously close to people pleasing.

Offer to Help

Our jobs are an arena where asking for help is like waving the proverbial white flag; there just isn’t much dignity in saying you can’t figure something out. As a result, most of us won’t ask for help when we should.

Knowing this, Jana Tulloch, a human-resources professional at tech learning firm Develop Intelligence, said one way you can build your name at work is to offer your help when you know someone is in over their head.

“One of the best ways to stand out is to always be asking, ‘How can I help,'” Tulloch said. “Often people wait for others to reach out to them when someone is needing an extra hand or some specific expertise; being proactive and working to engage with others regularly will help you raise your profile.”

Again, finesse is the key here. Don’t swoop in with plans to take over the project and the credit for a job well done. Enter the situation with a genuine desire to help.

 Build Your Own Brand

In the age of private contractors and side gigs, using your free time to build your brand is an invaluable talent.

Frances Reimers, principal at consultancy firm FireStarter, said making yourself stand-out as a brand requires grinding. Become an expert in what’s happening in your industry and start sharing your knowledge among fellow professionals on LinkedIn and other social media platforms.

This is the route Reimers took on her way to starting her own firm.

“I started by establishing my social media platforms and posting interesting content on a consistent basis. Then I graduated to drafting blogs, white papers, and infographics. Finally, I added television, radio, and public appearances,” Reimers said. “The success of this evolution led me to open my own personal brand consultancy so that I may assist individuals and small business who want to stand out from their peers.”

In our next, post  we’ll share six more tips that can help you stand out from the pack at your workplace.

Part 2 – Stand Out Employee

 

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