6 ideas for career growth besides a promotion

If there’s no room above you, there may be some room beside you. In fact, lateral moves — when you shift to a different role on the same level — can be a smart way to grow your career. This change lets you see your workplace from a new angle, pick up different skills and work (and network!) with new people. 

Browse opportunities on your company's career page to see if lateral moves are available. If you don’t see anything there, try talking to colleagues on teams adjacent to yours. Some of the best learning opportunities start from a conversation! Assess and understand how your current skills can apply to different positions; then, when the time is right, apply for that role. Better yet, build a relationship with the hiring manager to improve your visibility for new roles.

Transferable skills are those you take to any job in any industry. These skills, such as effective communication, adaptability, time management and problem-solving, help you fit into roles much easier because they are helpful everywhere. 

According to the National Soft Skills Association, 85% of career success comes from good people skills and soft skills; only 15% stems from technical skills and knowledge (hard skills).

To help you increase your skill set when it comes to these transferable skills, figure out what your top skills are. What do you do best? Where do you struggle?

To honestly assess this, review the feedback you’ve received throughout the year, or request feedback from colleagues you trust. This will help you increase your self-awareness and identify where you need to stretch yourself in service of soft-skill development.

Once you know where to grow, create a plan. You can build soft skills through:

• Online courses
• Coaching
• Mentoring

Let’s say you’re working on a team project. Write down the specific soft skills you used to complete it. For example: “Collaborated with Judy in Finance to complete the fiscal report. To do this, I shared responsibilities and improved communication and teamwork between departments.” These are valuable skills to put on your resumé and mention in job interviews. What you learn from enhancing your soft skills is valuable in advancing your emotional intelligence — and your career.

Beyond communication and problem-solving lies a host of desirable soft skills, like:

• Leadership: Being able to guide a team, make decisive choices and motivate others is crucial in any role. 
• Time management and organization: Mastering these means prioritizing tasks, managing your workload efficiently and keeping calm on deadlines.
• Cultural competence: The ability to work well in diverse teams and understand different perspectives is increasingly sought after in our interconnected world.
• Critical thinking: Being able to analyze situations thoroughly means you can come up with innovative solutions.
• Emotional intelligence: The capacity to be aware of and manage your own emotions and handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically can make all the difference in career growth.

Is it time to expand your career horizons by strategically developing relevant skills? Professional development courses can allow you to build on your work experience with new knowledge that rounds out your skill set.

While you will gain skills and possibly a digital badge or certificate of completion from a professional development course, enrolling in a certificate program is slightly different. At University of Phoenix, for example, they are often credit-bearing and can be applied to a degree program now or later.

Both options provide pathways to learning new and valuable career-relevant skills and are worth exploring for those who want to quickly enhance their knowledge.

If you work in a specific industry, you may look into earning a dedicated certification. In my career, for example, I earned my Senior Professional in Human Resources certification to enhance my skill set and professional credibility.

Finally, joining a professional association is always a good idea. It gives you access to ongoing dialogue about your industry or interest. It may also offer the opportunity to network or even lead at some point. 

A great way to enhance your career is through mentorship or coaching. Ideally, your mentor is in (or has been in) a position you would like to be in someday and is invested in seeing you grow in your role, company or career.

You can find a mentor in your organization or industry but be aware that they have to be willing to give up their time to meet with you on a semi-regular basis. Consider setting up a recurring meeting (weekly coffee dates or biweekly lunches) over an established time frame, such as six months or a year. The goal is for your mentor to share lessons learned, strategize how to work through obstacles and give career mapping advice. 

Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone intentionally learns from them. One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself as a student, employee and human being is to learn adaptability. 

Adaptability is the ability to pivot in response to changing circumstances and embrace new ideas. It is all about growing from what you have been through and showing how it has prepared you for new challenges. 

Over my career, I have coached hundreds of professionals and reviewed thousands of resumés. I have observed that resiliency is a common trait among people who have significantly grown their careers. One way to learn resiliency is to reshape your mindset around the experiences you are having. Look at every experience with a “win or learn” mentality. Meaning, when you succeed, you win; when you don’t, you have the opportunity to learn something. (See how “failure” isn’t part of the equation?) This is the key to a resilient growth mindset.

Each challenge you have faced and overcome, every new skill learned, contributes to your personal and professional success. To build resilience, find the value in your experiences, even the “losses.”  

Career growth is about more than just getting promoted up the corporate ladder. It is about diversifying experiences, developing new skills and growing as a person. Every choice you make in your career is a unique opportunity to improve your life. 

Career growth doesn’t happen alone. University of Phoenix equips its students and graduates with the following resources to help them along the way.

• Career Services for Life^® commitment: Available to UOPX students and graduates, this offering encompasses complimentary career coaching, including guidance on how to build a personal brand and write a resumé.
• Free career resources: Browse a range of downloadable guides and templates to help you optimize your LinkedIn^® profile, get ready for a job interview and write a resumé and cover letter.
• Career With Confidence™ newsletter: Get career insights every week via UOPX’s LinkedIn^® newsletter.

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