Your curriculum vitae will impress nobody if it looks as though you are not taking steps to improve yourself. This is most evident when you work for a company which makes the effort to provide training and encourages you to learn new skills. Grasp this opportunity with both hands! Not only do you improve your curriculum vitae, you are meeting company objectives, and that is a win-win situation! Be Performance Review-driven (assuming your company takes this annual or half-yearly exercise with any seriousness). Make sure you focus closely on the task by which you will be judged over the coming period. Be sure to complete any training you are set. As far as you can avoid doing tasks not on your agreed list of assignments for the coming period. Certainly continue to grow and develop as the ‘go to’ person but try to avoid all situations where you find yourself volunteering or being maneuvered into taking on tasks outside your are of responsibility. In particular, if you find yourself being ‘loaned’ to another department or to another manager outside your direct reporting line for any period of time, be sure that you maintain regular contact with your line manager and keep him or her informed of what you are doing. And be sure to have the new tasks written in to your Appraisal so your manager cannot turn round at the end of the period and give you a low grade because you weren’t contributing to work in his department.
Most importantly, by scrupulously maintaining and updating your career plan, you will be able to identify not only the skills and training you need to do your present job – you will have the foresight to educate yourself in the skills you will need for that job which is the next step long your career path. This is perhaps the single most important step which separates the winner from the pack.
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