Something Every Career Success Seeker Needs to Know

Every month I do an interview with a senior executive for members of My Corporate Climb.  If you’re not a member and would like to be, please go to http://MyCorporateClimb.com and sign up.

My interview for February is with Van Horsley, Chief Operating Officer for the Colorado Division of First Citizen’s Bank.  In the interview, which will be posted on My Corporate Climb the second Tuesday of February, Van shared his seven points for career success…

1. Always act with integrity.
2. Show up early.
3. Work harder than your peers.
4. Learn your company’s business.
5. Get engaged in your company’s business.
6. Understand how what you do contributes to your company’s business success.
7. Make yourself indispensable to your boss.

That’s some great common sense advice for creating your career success.

I really like number 7 – make yourself indispensable to your boss – for two reasons.  First, your boss has a lot to say about things that impact your life and career success.  He or she does your performance reviews, has input to your raises and is often in a position to promote you.  Second, when you are indispensable to your boss, he or she is likely to recommend you to take his or her job when he or she gets promoted.

There are many ways you can make yourself indispensable to your boss.  Technology is a good place to start.  For example, you can become a PowerPoint expert.  You can turn the idea your boss generates into high quality presentations that will help him or her shine.

Or, if you have an analytical mind, you can help your boss tackle complex problems that affect your company’s business, and come up with well thought out plans to address them.

I know of one woman who became a wardrobe advisor to her boss.  As it turns out, her was single and color blind – not a good combination for looking sharp at work every day.  She helped him purchase clothes that looked good when worn together.  This helped him get a promotion – and your guessed it, he promoted her.

I’d like to hear your thoughts and suggestions for making yourself indispensable to your boss.  What do you do?  What have you seen others do?  Please pass along your ideas in a comment on this post.  I’ll send everybody who comments the eBook version of the latest book in the Success Tweets series, Success Tweets for Creating Positive Personal Impact.  Please take a minute now to leave your comment.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Van Horsley of First Citizens Bank says that there are seven things he’s done over the course of his career to create his success.  1) Always act with integrity.  2) Show up early.  3) Work harder than your peers.  4) Learn your company’s business.  5) Get engaged in your company’s business.  6) Understand how what you do contributes to your company’s business success.  7) Make yourself indispensable to your boss.  If you apply these common sense ideas in your career you’ll be on your way to the life and career success you want and deserve.

That’s my career advice based on Van Horsley’s seven keys to success.  What do you think?  Get a free copy of Success Tweets for Creating Positive Personal Impact by leaving a comment sharing your best ideas for making yourself indispensable to your boss.  As always thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site last September.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.