5 Critical Strategies Needed To Succeed In The Cubicle

5 critical strategies needed to succeed in the cubicleThis is not your ordinary career site. I help the corporate worker who toils away in the company cubicle make career transitions. You want to do your job well, following all the rules -- .The career transitions where I can help you center on three critical career areas: How to land a job, succeed in a job, and build employment security.Top 10 Posts on CategoriesWhen it comes to success in the cubicle, it’s easy to get lost in all of the 20-ways to do this and 10-ways to do that. Yes, the tactics are useful, but tactics without strategy doesn’t really get you anywhere.Looking at your career, then, take a look at these five strategies for career success and then see how all those tactics can fit into your work.There is a tremendous amount of talk about servicing the customer. Or making sure the customer is taken care of in all situations. Or that customers drive the business.All true. And all false.Where most people miss it, th ough, is they hear those sayings and assume the customer is the person buying your company’s goods and services.That’s not the case (although important). Working in any corporation, the most important customer is your manager.Your manager is the person who supports your works and career â€" or can submarine it in a New York minute. You can get the tasks that will help you improve your job skills or your manager will give those lucrative tasks to someone else.Your manager can work wonders with your performance review â€" and subsequent raise and bonus â€" or your manager can dial that review back.Your manager can work with other managers to help you advance your career or quietly ensure you’ll never get another job in the company.In short, if you are not doing what your manager wants you doing in the way your manager wants to do them, you are not succeeding. Yes, there is a need for your good business judgement and suggestions, but once your manager makes a decision about the w ay to go, that’s the way you go.You may not agree with the decision or approach and some point it may become unbearable and you’ll need to leave, but ignoring your manager’s needs and wishes for your work is foolish.Job skills are the currency of staying employed. The more job skills you have, the more likely you will get the interview â€" especially if you can show how you used your job skills to achieve business results.Always be looking to advance your job skills. Take on the work that will give you new skills or will support you getting better at the ones you have.There are lots of ways to not get the job when you need one. The most basic is that your skills don’t match the needs of the job description. Think about how much has changed in the last five years relating to technology, business processes, and what is needed now in a knowledge economy.Do your skills match up? A good way to tell is go out and search ten job descriptions for the position you are in or want to h ave â€" and then see how much of the job description’s job skills you can check off. Doing this will tell you where you need to get to to get current.People hate office politics; I get it. That shouldn’t prevent you from figuring out what those politics are and how they impact getting your work done.Figuring out how to work with some one or some group to have success is important in that it shows managers â€" or other employers â€" how you work through difficult situations and still accomplished your goals.So figure it out.Every job has its own job skills. Nursing is different than engineering and engineering is different than database management.But a job search is a job search. It’s about networking, resume building, phone screens, in-person interviews and managing offers.We’re not very good at the job search process because we don’t use it that much. And when we do, or have to, it’s almost like starting over. Rebuild your resume. Wonder about how the process works now compared to the last time you did a job search.Keeping job search skills current will put you far out in front of most people looking for work.To be clear, there is no job security. None.Now, it’s not like I want you to feel fear about your job all the time, but too many people think that because they have a full-time job at some company it means they don’t have to worry about their job.And, for the most part, that’s true. Until the company gets sold. Or your division gets sold. Or your upper management changes and the direction your company takes changes along with it.There is simply no way for you to protect yourself, no matter how fabulous you think you are, in any single job.So job security doesn’t exist. But employment security does. It’s really the only protection your have â€" your ability to stay employed by having job skills, results, networking, job search skills and financial backing is the answer.It takes a while to build up employment security. But having emp loyment security means you don’t have to keep a horrible job because you have no way out. It means other employers will want to hire you â€" and you won’t be desperate to take any job just because it is a job.These are not the only ways to succeed in a career, of course. But I’d suggest these five traits will take you pretty far on the path of career success.What else would you say makes a successful career?This is not your ordinary career site. I help the corporate worker who toils away in the company cubicle make career transitions. You want to do your job well, following all the rules â€" .The career transitions where I can help you center on three critical career areas: How to land a job, succeed in a job, and build employment security. policiesThe content on this website is my opinion and will probably not reflect the views of my various employers.Apple, the Apple logo, iPad, Apple Watch and iPhone are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. I’m a big fan.Copyright 2020 LLC, all rights reserved.