Common Career Derailers for Young Professionals

Whether you're a rising star in your industry or company, are just starting out or are still at university, it's never too early (or late) to ensure that you don't have some of the most common career derailers standing in your way of career success! Let's dig into things that could be preventing you from advancing...

First of all, not having a personal brand or having a misaligned personal brand can seriously damage your early career success.??

Critical in maximizing your career success -the ability to define it to yourself but most importantly to ALIGN IT with what you present to others.

Make sure the way you think you're coming across in the workplace (or ideally your personal life too) is actually the way other people are perceiving you.

Often, people think their positive brand attributes (i.e. what makes them attractive to employers and other people in their professional network) or their opportunity areas (for instance what they think they need to work on) are one thing and then when they test for alignment, they may find out that it's not the case at all. People are actually perceiving them in a totally different way.

So, understanding your personal brand and how you present yourself is key - because everybody is always assessing who you are and what you're about, wondering if it's sincere and authentic.?

What to do if you discover your personal brand is misaligned.

So you tested your personal brand by talking to people who know you - professionally, personally, maybe strangers. And what did you discover? You are misaligned. You think you're coming across a certain way, but people are saying that's not the individual I want on my team - for whatever reason. Either they're not aware of you, or you're not aware of an opportunity area. You need to get feedback and seek to understand.?

Testing for alignment is not a one-time thing. It's something you should do periodically in general and definitely after any role, firm or team change. It's important for early professionals as well as execs.

Personal Branding Pro Tip

My philosophy is to align your core skills (things you're good at) with the roles you're applying to. The ideal equation would be: you bring good core skills + you understand the company culture + it aligns + you have a very intentional approach.

You also need to be able to bring all you have to offer together. To summarize yourself in those elevator pitch moments and also to a new professional contact or at the end of an interview! That is one of the biggest gaps I've found with all the people I've interviewed over my decades in HR: early professionals lack a way to bring it all together, to synthesize their unique selling proposition for any given role.

You Try to Coast By instead of GOING ABOVE AND BEYOND

Get motivated. You need to be ready to go the extra mile. If you're not, it will be noticed over time. You need to build leadership qualities and positive, reciprocal (meaning you're also bringing something to the table) working relationships.

Ideally, these professional relationships would be long-term. That's certainly what I experienced during my over 40 years at the same firm. However, I know that the landscape is changing and having this type of longevity and firm-loyalty is not always possible now. Because of this, it's even more important to be ready to distinguish yourself by over-delivering and raising expectations (again in a reciprocal way - not letting your work be taken advantage of). Those who are aware of how to distinguish themselves and go the extra mile, to ASK for those career opportunities, get ahead. If you have trouble asking, that's also something I work on with my coaching clients.

Going Above and Beyond - Get motivated. You need to be ready to go the extra mile.

Thirdly, Your Interviewing skills - Enhance Them!?

Alluded to earlier - your interviewing skills are vital to your early career success. Interviewing skills are partly about self-presentation (or personal branding), partly about your ability to negotiate, how well you make a social connection (even if not meeting in-person, or with a person for that matter) and your preparation skills.

Take the time to research when you're setting up for an interview: What is the company about? How can you distinguish yourself during the interview via points of commonality, solutions, values, etc. Those that?do this often find success with a job that really aligns.?

Lastly, You Need to Have a Structured Approach to Early Career Success

Intertwined in this whole process and all the previous steps - you need to take an intentional, structured approach to actualize your version of early career success. You need to really reflect on and plan this.

One of the things I've noticed about university students is that some of them are all over it, and start early - they get it. Others wait up until the last year of their university life, and they're not sure what they want to do. Both need help planning. Your early career is from the time you begin university (maybe even the summer before) and the 6 to 10 years into your like as a working professional.

The big question is often - What do I want to do, how do I want to succeed -and university students or even graduates don't know.

So initially, with many of my clients in this population - we work on getting them out of the uncertain, sometimes floundering phase, to becoming intentional.

First we do an Ideal Job Reflection - if you had a perfect 10 job, what would it be?

The challenge is to identify the industries, companies and roles that are best going to suit you. THEN you have to create a structured approach to get there. You can begin doing this from your first internship or job, or you can start already into your early career but longing for a transition. You just need to have a general idea about what you want to start - you don't have to know everything. That's where working with mentors and coaches comes in.

Additional Help Dealing with Career Derailers?

If you want more support finding and addressing any of your career derailers, schedule a 1:1 discovery call with me. During this 45-minute call, we'll go over your current needs and goals. If we decide it's a good fit, we will schedule a full coaching call and I'll send you my Ideal Job Workbook. As you go through the in-depth questions to help you determine what job or internship would fit you perfectly right now, leveraging your skills and also bringing you fulfillment, I'll be accessible by email or text. When you've finished, we'll have our first full coaching session and begin constructing a concrete plan based on my feedback and over 40 years of expertise. Is it time to take the next step in your journey toward early career success?

Join the email list as you wait to book your discovery call and check out the free resources in the meantime!