Is Ignoring Your Career Making It Dull?

I wear my engagement and wedding rings every day, but I don’t always pay a lot of attention to them. I just slip them on my ring finger in the morning and go about my day. Sometimes I’ll absentmindedly rub the underside of the bands, but that’s about all the attention they get on a daily basis.

Recently, I happened to glance down at them, and it struck me just how dingy and dirty they looked! It had been a while since I had let them soak in the cleaner I bought for them, and it showed. As the months (possibly years?) passed, my once-shiny rings now looked quite dull.

Have you let that happen to the tools that you use in your career management? Is your résumé, which at one time sparkled with new accomplishments, showing its age because it’s been two or three years (or longer) since you updated it? Are the stories that you crafted for interviews and networking opportunities lacking in luster because they reflect skills that are not as necessary as they were years ago? Do you need to polish up your connections to friends and past colleagues who you haven’t talked with for 10+ years?

Career management is not just something that you do when you decide that you want to explore job options. It’s something that needs regular, ongoing care so you can shine brightly at all times! Because you never know when an interesting career opportunity will come along, you want to be prepared for it by having a schedule that will enable you to keep all your career management tools ready at a moment’s notice.

If it’s been a while and you aren’t sure where to start, enlisting the help of a career professional who is up-to-date with the latest trends in career management can help. So can taking a good look at what you’ve been doing for the past few years and determining where the bright spots are. Even picking up the phone or sending an email to reconnect to people you haven’t spoken with in a long time will help start getting those relationships current. The point is — do something! The longer you ignore your career and the tools that will keep it moving in the right direction, the more lifeless it seems. But once you start to knock off the debris and make time for managing your career, it will shimmer and shine!

Have you been ignoring your career? What can you do to keep it current?

Image courtesy of Andrew Magill

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