The Career You'll Love

Earlier this year, Microsoft commissioned a study which asked hiring managers how much they used the internet to check out prospective candidates. Here’s a couple of interesting results:

• 57% used professional and business networking sites (such as LinkedIn).
• 98% used SOME internet resources to check out candidates.

This tells you that you need to have a positive presence on the internet, because your next boss is most likely going to check you out – perhaps even before ever setting up an interview.

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It seems that recently many people, perhaps most, have struggled to be inspired by their work. With such an uncertain economy, 24/7 accessibility, fear of job loss, and lack of pay increases, we’ve created work environments where many focus more on keeping up with work than on making a great contribution.

There’s some really practical reasons why you should look to be engaged in your work:

• You become more productive, thereby more valuable to your employer.
• It helps you to be more creative and bring more energy to what you do.
• It affects the attitudes of those you work with, helping you to have some fun.
• It makes you happier and more satisfied with the work you do.

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The word “visibility” has gotten a bit of a bad rap inside organizations. I’ve seen it associated with concepts of playing politics, whitewashing, and generally creating a false image.

If your great work speaks for itself, why worry about making yourself visible?

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Here’s the bonus category: Yourself. We’ve spent so much time thinking about other people, we might have forgotten that it’s important how we feel about our own work!

Looking at it this way, you realize that you are independent of your work. So how does the work help you to achieve your life and career goals? How would you LIKE to relate to your work?

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I’ve broken out partners as a distinct category of stakeholders, because the relationships are much different than the others in our diagram.

The simple definition of “partner” is someone who works with you to deliver value to their customers and your customers, and to their management and your management. In the case of your teammates, the customers and management might be the same. In fact, that makes decisions much easier, because you hopefully have an environment that’s aligned and supports you working together.

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As we travel through the stakeholders, your customers end up being one of the most powerful categories. And the length of this list might surprise you!

Depending on your job, the end customer might seem very distant. My first career out of college was as an engineer, and there were many stages between my work and the people who actually purchased the products I worked on. But as I became more experienced, I recognized that the people who spend money are the most important ones to understand, because that money paid my paycheck. If they didn’t want to spend money, there was no reason for me to have a job.

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On our journey through the stakeholders, people often think that “management” is the easiest one to figure out. But it may be trickier than you think!

I define “management” as the people who are given the power to direct your work, and as such are responsible for whether you do a good job or not.

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Let’s start off this series of “stakeholders” by exploring your suppliers. People can struggle with this category, so let’s explore it a bit more.

Let’s suppose that you’re in marketing or sales. Who develops the products or services that you sell? Who purchases or supplies them?

Or suppose you’re in customer service, answering questions and resolving issues. What are the products your customers call about? Who controls them?

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