To Your Wealth

Racine Journal Times

Michael P Haubrich, CFP

Strategies to Manage your Career Asset

Over the past couple of years I have written that careers should be considered the most valuable financial asset for most people. While that is true, many people lack a “care and feeding guide” for their careers. Today I will discuss three strategies, if exercised over your working life will help ensure your career will remain viable and reward you with the benefits of increased job security and satisfaction in an ever changing world.

You may ask, “How can anyone be assured of job security today?” That is a fair question. The best way to ensure you have control over aspects of job security is to have skills that are continuously updated to remain relevant in an ever changing global market and be positioned to exchange those skills in the market. This is where the three career strategies come into play.

The first career strategy is to adopt a habit of life-long learning. This learning can start as part of a goal to obtain a degree or certificate. That form of formal learning ends with the achievement of the sought after degree or certificate, which

leads to the more important learning which comes in keeping your career skills relevant through continuing education. This can be part of maintaining your credentials by taking classes or attending required workshops. Certified public accountant, attorneys, architects, and other professionals have continuing education requirements to maintain their credentials.

For the same reasons those professions require continuing education, we all should add this strategy for maximizing our career value. Ask your employer what learning opportunities exist for you to advance in your field. Your employer may be part of a trade or industry association that offers skill development or education. At the very least, subscribe to trade publications and be current on new developments in your field and industry. By staying informed, inevitable changes will not come as a surprise but represent opportunities for you to acquire the necessary skills to compete and advance.

The second career strategy is to periodically check the value of your career skill set (at least once every two years). You do this by benchmarking your job or skills against the market. Depending on the type of employment, you can find this information online or by using a career counselor/coach. One site that provides you with salary benchmarking is www.salary.com. By knowing what value your job skills represent, you can better negotiate salary and benefits. You can also identify skills you may be lacking that are limiting your highest potential value.

Benchmarking can also determine if you are currently overpaid for your responsibilities and skills. Yes that does happen and when it does, know you are at risk. I have seen this first hand after benchmarking a client’s market value against his current compensation. He was over paid by more than 30 percent. By the time we discovered this, there was little else to do but prepare for a job change. At least we had over a year to work on his next job before his management recognized they were overpaying for the skill and laid him off.

The third career strategy is networking. This is the ongoing process of communicating your skills in the market. Look at networking within your company/industry and outside. You network within your company/industry by getting yourself known for your skills and value that you add. Join general and professional organizations within your field. You can find the organization most appropriate for your field by going to the local library and checking out the Encyclopedia of Associations.

Networking outside your industry is best done by joining various service and business organizations. Volunteering is one of the best ways to network and demonstrate your skills to other members of that organization along with the reward of contributing to a worthwhile cause.

If you do not feel comfortable implementing these strategies or just need some extra help consider hiring a career coach. The coach will not only assist in executing these strategies, but also help you through the inevitable career transitions. By employing these strategies, you can ensure your most valuable financial asset will evolve to its highest potential.

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