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Top 5 Tips: How to Boost Your Career in 2009by Siyuan Ren
"New Year, new start." You hear this phrase again and again when it's approaching theend of the year and there are many articles on the Internet offering advice on how to get anew job in the New Year. This article, however, focuses on what you need to do in 2009to advance your career in the long term. Having reviewed our resources on our Career Development section, we have now developed the following top 5 tips which can helpyou boost and manage your career in the year ahead, be it a new job or your current job.The Top 5 Tips are:1.Assess your strengths and weaknesses2.Develop your intent3.Create an action plan for 20094.Build confidence by updating your CV5.Document your continuous professional development
1. Assess your strengths and weaknesses
 A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis can help you toassess what you are good at and the areas you need to work on.The SWOT analysis is a tool used in strategic planning and marketing, but it can also beapplied to your career development, which has been mentioned by both Neil Harris in hisarticle
Career Audit 
and Melanie Allen in her 
Career Crisis 
seriesStrengths and weaknesses are used to assess yourself. These include your skills,knowledge, experience and your motivation. Opportunities and threats are used toevaluate the environment around you, including issues arising in your workingenvironment and industries. The table below shows an example of your career SWOTanalysis:2
 
Internal
- Aboutyourself 
StrengthsWeaknesses
•
Transferable skills:
o
 Negotiating
o
Problem-solving
o
Team-working
o
Budgeting
•
Positive attitude atwork 
•
Good managementskills
•
Your personality doesn't fit your work 
•
Lack of knowledge of job hunting inanother country
•
Bad time management of a full time job and postgraduate studies
External
- Aboutyour work & Industry
OpportunitiesThreats
•
Being headhunted
•
Work-basedtraining
•
Social Networking
•
Economic downturn and creditcrunch
•
Career Crisis
•
Low salary pay
•
Emigration barriers in another countryFrom the SWOT analysis, you need to determine how you can overcome your weaknesses and convert threats into opportunities. For example, you could take a courseto develop a particular skill or obtain a professional qualification, or you canwork from  homein order to cut down travelling time and costs.
2. Develop your intent
 Be clear about what you want to achieve in your career. Evaluate your current job andconsider if this fits or if it's time for a change.Your career intent is your long-term career goals. According to your SWOT analysis,write down what you want to achieve in 3 years, 5 years, and 10 years time in your career. Your career intent will give you a direction that you want to go on your career  path. Your long-term intent can help you set realistic short-term objectives. Only byachieving the short-term objectives can you reach your long-term career goals.You now need to evaluate your current work by asking the following questions:
•
What parts of my job satisfy me?
•
What parts of the current job don't satisfy me and how I can turn it around?
•
Am I able to achieve my short-term objectives and long-term goals in my current position?
•
If I can't achieve my objectives, what can I do to achieve them? Bytraining for  career development, staying in the same job butgoing on secondment, or  changing job?3
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Big stevey

hi Mr am Steve a comp sci college grad wouldu mind sending me this doc? stevosine@aol.com

reply12 / 03 / 2009
balaanzdagiimaa

hi all? I m happy for those great tips

reply09 / 23 / 2009
aligouse

Hi can u plzz send me this document at aligouse@yahoo.co.in Thank You

reply05 / 20 / 2009
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