Career aspect: Awards & recognition - Restless patience in career journeys series

Building upon the article I published in January 2022 titled Be restlessly patient & take control of your career journey, and based on the feedback and interest I received on the topic, I've initiated a series of follow-on articles to extend details on the different career aspects I've introduced in the first article. The aim is to make the career aspects as clear as possible; providing pointers and examples where applicable, in order to make them actionable, allowing you to plan and track the different activities against them easily going forward.

In this article I'll introduce the Awards & recognition career aspect.

In my first article titled Be restlessly patient & take control of your career journey, I've briefly introduced this career aspect as follows:?

Awards & recognition received over time in our journey. Besides being personally fulfilling to be recognized, it's also an undeniable assertion of your value and impact.

To further clarify the Awards & recognition aspect, it’s about being a recognized and decorated leader in the community. It’s a measure of how influential a leader you are which has been attested by the awards and recognition you received along your career path. You’re considered a role model for others in the areas of recognition, someone who others would seek out and look up to.

Moving next into how to engage in the Awards & recognition career aspect.?

• It’s important to realize that while many recognition and awards come naturally and are received as a by-product of doing a splendid job on the different activities you engage with, however, several other awards are up for you to nominate yourself to. The awards would be highly specific to your domain of interest, but indeed a lot of the awards presented by prestigious and well established organizations and communities accept self-nomination, which you can plan for applying to yourself. Of course you need to be familiar with the requirement and understand what they are looking for so you can aim to meet their criteria, but still, it’s important to know that it’s often a self-initiated action from your part.
• Where it is applicable to plan for an award or recognition, set your target, plan for it (even over several years) and track your progress as part of your career planning and tracking activities. Refer to my first article titled Be restlessly patient & take control of your career journey for the simple career planning and tracking framework you can utilize.
• Similarly, as you join contests in your domain of expertise, you increase the odds of winning awards and getting recognition as a result. Think of joining Call for Code activities for example if you’re in the IT industry.
• Scan the horizon in your domain for the recognized awards of interest, and check out their criteria.
• Engage actively and genuinely with the community, by giving back to others, and note how awards and recognition often come as unexpected surprises (you won’t stop once you get them though!).

A few additional tips for the Awards & recognition career aspect:

• Be curious and intentional about awards and recognition, from as early as possible in your career journey. When you know or hear of people in your network getting awards, dig deeper to learn more about the recognition and the eligibility criteria for it. You may be happily surprised when you know how close you are to meeting it.
• Do not confuse the Awards & recognition career aspect with the Certifications & credentials career aspect. While some (heavy) programs or certifications could entail a recognition, it’s not always the case.
• Awards and recognition can be internal (inside your company) or external; from established organizations and communities of interest, or from clients you worked with. All types are important and valuable. Having the range of awards and recognition in your profile from those different entities adds so much weight to you.

Moving on to why the Awards & recognition career aspect is important and how it links to the other career aspects. Off the bat, awards and recognition assert your Domain of expertise, and adds flare to your profile. Having them also increases your Social eminence and raise your Networking & visibility. They also help you land better Opportunities to excel. Finally, the more IP, IC, publications and Give-back activities you engage in, the higher are your chances in being recognized.

With that, it should be clearer now what the Awards & recognition career aspect is all about, how you can engage in it, and why it's important for your career.

This concludes the ninth article in the Restless patience in career journeys series - more to come as I cover the last career aspect of Give-back, so stay tuned.