Regardless Of Your Age, You Can Optimize Your Earning Potential

Whether you are beginning your career or have been working for a few years, the best asset you have is your earning potential. Every person is different and so, you are certainly different from those who may be financially successful. These successful people may be following good habits such as saving regularly, controlling their expenses and not indulging in any stupid things with the investment options available to them. Though these habits are very important, it is highly essential that you must utilize your earning power wisely. Managing your career is very important in order to use your earning potential optimally. So, when you make vital decisions at your workplace, you must never forget that these decisions can impact your future as well as your earning potential.

The following few suggestions may help you maximize the power of your earning potential.

If you are in the early stages of your career:

Being socially savvy will help

If you ensure to have a good and strong profile on social media sites such as LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter, etc., you can benefit immensely because more and more employers are using these sites for finding talents. If your profile that contains details of your skills and accomplishments attracts the attention of hiring managers, you will become one of the highly sought-after candidate for the jobs they have. You must ensure to add a suitable photo also because hiring managers have to be certain that they are dealing with a real person.

Play your numbers wisely

You should adopt a professional approach and be wise to negotiate your remuneration in the initial stage itself. Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever who have authored the book "Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide" say that those who fail to negotiate their remuneration in the initial stage of their career may lose even over $500,000 before they reach their normal age of retirement. So, do not hesitate to put your expectation on the negotiating table so you can get the desired salary at the end of the discussions. For knowing the prevailing salary levels, you can talk to your peers or those who are working for the company you wish to work with. You can use the details on sites such as Glassdoor.com and PayScale.com.

Do not leave the game

It is true you may have a lot of domestic chores including taking care of your small children. But the effects of losing your momentum and lost wages are too huge to ignore. A study conducted by Harvard University experts also reveals that earnings of women MBAs who left the game for about 18 months were less by 41% than what their male counterparts could earn. So, before you contemplate quitting completely, try to negotiate to have flexible working works or for working part-time or as a freelance worker.

Never lose your touch 

Even if you have no other alternative except to quit, you must not lose touch. You can even opt for “strategic volunteering” that may dovetail your interrupted career. You must ensure to add this to your resume so prospective employers do not come to the conclusion that you may have lost touch with the field. You can continue to maintain relationship with your co-workers because it will help you keep abreast of the developments in your field. Carol Fishman Cohen, who has co-authored the book, "Back on the Career Track" also opines that it is more important to keep your connections strong especially when you quit and take a break.

Impress the higher-ups

If you have the support of senior–level mentors, you can earn much more than what you can earn otherwise. This fact has been corroborated even by Catalyst, that is a popular workplace researcher. So, you must be proactive and create situations wherein you can prove your worth. You can also seek special assignments that can show how you stand out from others. Be careful to choose those assignments that provide you with a chance to interact with the movers and shakers of the industry in which you are working. If you are working for a company, the assignments you choose must get you access to the top brass of the organization.

Be active

Studies conducted by Vasilios Kosteas, Professor of Cleveland State University reveal that those who are active or who do regular exercises are able to earn 6 to 9% more than those who do not do their exercises. In short, employees who are fit are certainly more productive because they can manage their work-related stress more efficiently. So, they can advance in their career more quickly than the other group.

If you are in the middle of your career:

Modify your resume by giving a facelift to it

Chances of landing in a new and better job increase manifold if you modify your resume by giving a facelift to it. The Ladders, a popular job site suggests that you can take professional help for doing this. Experts advise that it is better you lop off those years and experiences prior to the latest 10 years because employers are interested only in knowing what you have been doing lately.

Tap your connections or contacts

According to "Unlock the Hidden Job Market" that has been authored by Duncan Mathison, more than half of the job openings that arise are never advertised at all. So, if you wisely tap your connections or contacts, you can know even those opportunities that are not advertised.

Research about companies that may be looking for experienced candidates like you

There are a number of companies who may be on the look-out for experienced candidates like you. AARP has a site known as Life Reimagined and CareerBuilder has another site called Prime CB and these sites may help you find such opportunities.

Get tech savvy

There is a conception that older workers are not tech-savvy. You must bust this misconception. Keep abreast of all the technological developments that keep taking taking place and the latest trends by discussing about them with your connections on social media.

Building your brand is essential

Creating a professional website will help. Yola.com helps you create one for free. You can host the site by making a meager payment and this will get you mobile-publishing support also. A website will help in showcasing your work. If you regularly post articles, speeches, client testimonials, and presentations and keep adding your accomplishments and examples of your good work to your site, you can improve your chances of being contacted by companies that may require your services. You can create a blog on the website and keep updating it with posts. This will bolster your chances of landing in a better job.

Never stop acquiring new skills

Being an experienced employee, you are more vulnerable for cutbacks than new employees. Similarly, you may be very slow in rebounding from such situations. Therefore, keep acquiring new skills and add them to your resume so those organizations that seek experienced candidates with such skills may find you easily. In short, you will be protecting or rather improving your earning potential by acquiring new skills.

Be a mentor

You must turn a mentor also for a few deserving employees. The top brass of organizations are always watchful and they have a liking for experienced managers who mentor upcoming and enthusiastic employees at the lower level. They offer more remuneration to such managers than what they offer to non-mentoring managers.

You can maximize your earnings if you take these steps sincerely.

This Advice Can Help You In Advancing In Your Career

If you think that having a mentor is enough for advancing in your career, you may be terribly wrong. It is true that having a mentor is a wonderful thing because he or she may help you gain some of the critical skills that are required for your job. Your mentor may also help you navigate the challenges you may face at your workplace. You can use your mentor also as a sounding board when you are staring at a crossroad-like situation in the career you have chosen. But in the present-day environment when a highly competitive climate is prevailing in every field, you can not climb your career ladder without the help of a sponsor.

Jenna Goudreau who has authored an article entitled “Why You Need a Sponsor—Not a Mentor—to Fast-Track Your Career,” says that recent studies categorically establish that sponsorship, and not mentorship, can trigger power transfers in a workplace. Even many other management experts admit that sponsors can wield their internal social and political power as well as capital in helping their candidates move their career forward. This means they will be willing to argue the cases of their favorite candidates with the top management, of course, in camera. In other words, sponsors are spokespersons who can influence the top management by putting forth arguments in favor of your capabilities. The main difference between mentors and sponsors is that mentors will talk with the candidates but sponsors will talk about their candidates. Mentors give perspectives but sponsors provide their candidates with opportunities.

Another explanation can be mentors may help you in your efforts to “skill up” while sponsors will hep you in your upward movement in your career ladder. If you acquire the support of a good sponsor, you can rest assured that you are protected by a safety net so you can take risks confidently. You can demand for a stretch in your assignment and you can even ask for a promotion. Your sponsor will act as what experts call as "the protective bubble" and will shield you from drastic organizational changes such as layoffs, reorganizations, etc. On the positive side, when high-level talent and development discussions take place in camera, they will not forget to talk about you. Conversely, if you are moving up in your career ladder faster than others, you can assume that a sponsor has pulled strings for you.

How to choose a sponsor?

This is a wrong question because you never have an option to choose your sponsor. The fact is that it is a sponsor who chooses you. But if you possess certain behaviors, you will certainly attract the attention of even high-level sponsors. The good news is that you can tilt the scales in your favor and increase the chances of such high-level sponsors advocating for you by acquiring these behaviors.

1. Performance

No other behavior can attract a sponsor better than a great performance. Sponsors may hate to advocate the cases of incompetent people. Therefore, you must make all possible efforts to enhance your performance levels. For example, if you perform beyond the role that has been assigned to you, you are more likely to attract the attention of a high-level sponsor.

2. Get to know who high-level sponsors are

Identifying such sponsors may be a tricky task. But you can easily find the talent scouts or talent developers in your company. Do a little more research about them so you can identify a high level sponsor. Leaders or managers in the top hierarchy of your company who do not hesitate to praise their subordinates publicly and to back them even when contentious issues crop up can be good sponsors. Likewise, high-level sponsors are those who never hesitate to offer huge and challenging assignments to subordinates who are enthusiastic, who are upcoming but who are yet to prove themselves.

3. Be ready to grab Exposure Opportunities

A sponsor may hesitate to advocate your case if he or she does not have the opportunity to know your competence or the quality of your skills. So, when a project that gives an opportunity to work under such a sponsor comes up, you must not hesitate to grab it. In fact, you must be proactive and find such a project. You can even join a task force or a committee that is specially formed by such a sponsor so he or she can directly see your enthusiasm, your activities and the quality of your competence.

4. Your values must be 'visible'

Your achievements and your values must be visible to everyone and more particularly, to such high-level sponsors of your company. Never think that your values, skills or competence should be kept a secret. When you get a chance to meet potential sponsors either in the elevator or in the office canteen, you must not hesitate to share a sound-bite that describes your accomplishments.

5. Have Clearly Defined Career Goals

Unless you have clearly defined career goals, your sponsor may not know the right opportunities that match with them. After all, you can not expect your sponsor to know them when you yourself do not know what you want to achieve.

6. Sharing Your Career Goals With Potential Sponsors Is Not A Mistake

You must share your career goals with your mentor, the managers of the company and more importantly, potential sponsors so they will remember them at the right moments. In short, sharing your career goals will always keep you ‘sponsor-ready.’