11 Bits of Career Advice That No One Shares

Summary: Use these bits of career advice to advance your career so you can stop making mistakes and streamline the process of becoming successful at what you do.

There are ‘unspoken rules’ around you that no one discusses or shares. Figuring them out can save your career and help you achieve greater success. Understanding how the working world operates and what is needed to be good at what you do takes time to learn but these 11 career advice tips can help you get a jump start.

1. Job requirements are negotiable. There are always exceptions to job requirements. A candidate may have overwhelming experience in all of the listed job requirements except one. Just because you don’t have three years of experience in the job already does not mean that you can’t handle the job. Show in your resume that your other qualifications make up for the shortcoming.
2. Imposter syndrome can be a good thing. There are studies claiming that some groups are more successful than others when they have three shared characteristics – insecurity, impulse control, and a superiority complex. Having a group that shares these three traits forms a recipe for success. The truth is that certain cultures share these characteristics, specifically Indian-Americans, Iranian-Americans, Lebanese-Americans, and Chinese-Americans.
3. Nothing is realistic. What you perceive as realistic is based on what you are exposed to. Families where no one goes to school view attending college as unrealistic or those whose salary never reach into middle-income levels see achieving a middle income as unrealistic. The examples go on. In order to make what seems unrealistic be realistic, you must spend time with those doing what you thought was not possible. Work with the best in your industry, listen to their interviews, read their books, and study what they have done to get where they are. Spending time researching them and, in a way, trying to be them will help your dreams become reality.
4. Don’t select a career off of “average salaries” or employment numbers. When your goal is to be the best in your field, average numbers won’t matter. Once again, there are always exceptions. People can make six figures blogging.
5. Don’t pick a company, pick a boss. People want to get a job at top companies like Goldman Sachs or Google because they assume that will mean they will have a great job for life. Unfortunately, that is not always true. The supervisor you have has a big impact on your career. You should be choosing a company because of your mentor. Having someone you can turn to and learn from will be more important for your career in the long run. Those kinds of connections can also get you into the “inner circle” of your field. A good mentor can direct you towards wise career choices and away from bad choices that may hurt your career.
6. Sometimes a pay cut is worth it. Taking a pay cut can be worth it if it means you can work with a great mentor or gain valuable experience that will pay off in the long-term. This can be especially true for those early on in their career. Gaining knowledge from a mentor could be more valuable than a big paycheck right off the bat.
7. You will have to change your skills to keep up. The things that got you the job won’t carry you through to promotions. You need to develop and place greater emphasis on other skills once you are hired. Generally, candidates are hired for their technical skills, but to grow in the company and industry, how you work with others will matter more. Of course, you must be good at what you do as well, but having good relationships with clients and coworkers will be critical.
8. Real learning happens after college. You attend several years of school, but the real education begins when you leave school to enter the working world. This is evident when you consider that the most successful people read around one book a week, read research papers, listen to podcasts, attend conferences, and talk to others to learn more about what other successful people are doing. Successful people understand the big picture and how one concept applies to another so they are able to land bigger opportunities.
9. Get more exposure whenever possible. When you complete something professionally, write about it. Post those writings online on a blog or another source. Reach out to others trying to accomplish similar things. The more you are out there, the more your credibility can grow. The larger your audience, the more people will take your opinions and experiences seriously.
10. Don’t take your job for granted. If there is something that you want to do, like run a business, then get in there are learn how businesses run. Explore different positions within a business like an assembly line worker, maintenance, management, and more to get an idea of how the entire thing runs. Just assuming that you can get a job with a big company and know everything about how it works and runs successfully is ignorant. Jobs are only as bad or low as you make them to be. Make the best of every opportunity you have to learn.
11. You’re going to have to jump and run and work hard for everything you get. Most people sit and wait their turn. The most successful people skip the line and find another way in. They find ways of impressing a company beyond just submitting an application online. Research solutions to a problem the company is facing and present your findings to them.

Have you ever taken advantage of one of these tips before? What happened? Share your experience with us in the comments below.

To learn more about what it takes to be successful, read these articles:

• The Successful Entrepreneur’s 10 Daily Habits
• Successful People Do These Things on the Weekends
• 7 Things Successful Employees Do Before Noon

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