Sometimes it is difficult to know how you can get ahead in your professional life. Nowadays, opportunities don’t tend to be as forthcoming as they might have been in the past, purely because the economy in the UK doesn’t have the perceived stability it once had. Until that stability returns, professional people ought to take certain matters into their own hands.
For instance, there is every chance that professional people will find opportunities for personal development so that they may be able to press forward with their plans. Personal development of this kind is really important in the sense that it often allows employees to move up the ladder when opportunities arise in their current department.
Otherwise, it might mean an employee has more training under their belt so that they can move laterally within the company, with a long term plan to move upwards when the time is right. Of course, these situations may happen much more naturally – when employees are found to have a new set of skills, their job often changes slightly and soon becomes something completely different – something commanding its own title, its own level of responsibility and its own (increased) salary.
Then there are the opportunities that training and development present outside the current place of work. Lots of people train with a view to moving on elsewhere and their chief aim is to add to their skillset and make their CV more attractive to companies they may apply to for vacant positions, or indeed speculatively.
Personal development shows great alacrity when it comes to doing the necessary work to improve your professional circumstances and there’s no doubt that prospective employers really like this quality. Employers want proactive members of their team who show the will to make a real difference and personal development is the key to demonstrating what you have up your sleeve in this department.
This is obviously to say nothing of the skills and experience that come from engaging in training courses of all kinds. The important thing is to identify a field you’d like to move into or an area you’d like to know more about. Another strategy is to look for a course that gives you skills that you know are very desirable when it comes to person specs for the jobs available in the current climate.
Once you’ve found your ideal course or courses, apply yourself fully because this new set of skills come mean the start of something really positive for you.
This article was written by Andy Barnes, recent alumni of OHSAS 18001 Auditor Conversion course.