What is career-ready? Career-ready means that, should you require a change in position, you will be ready to begin your search in a matter of days.

Sometimes becoming career-ready could be as simple as having a discussion with your boss. You might discuss your performance, your plan, and then what the leadership and success plans might look like. On the other hand, you may be considering transitions to new industries or new roles that take considerable effort to prepare for. To know how close you are to considering new opportunities, visit ProValues to identify your values and measure your satisfaction in your current role.

How do I know it is time to start preparing yourself to be career-ready?

1. You sense a general uncertainty in the general economy

2. You sense a general uncertainty in your industry

3. You sense a general uncertainty with your firm

4. Every year, because sometimes you don’t know when the now will be

5. Your satisfaction at work has lowered and you are open to change

What does one do to prepare? First of all, steal yourself for an intense process. Your career is your most valuable asset (even more than your home!), and it deserves suitable time and investment. Stop and take the time to really focus on what achievements you’d like to present to the marketplace, and leverage the resources below.

• Resume: Keep your resume up to date. Update address, update bullets with achievements you feel are consistent with achievement and impact. Here are some tips to consider
   

• Social Media:

  • LinkedIn: Keep your LinkedIn profile up to date. This is your most valuable asset, second only to personal networking, for finding opportunities that are not publicly posted.

  • FaceBook, and Twitter etc.: Keep your posts something you’d be proud to show during a job interview. Stop and check yourself with every “submit” choice, and clean up what you have already posted. You may never be able to fully delete anything, but you can make it harder to find.
     

• Personal Networking:

  • Industry, role or company networking: Attending events, conferences, and shifting from participant to thought leader will help position you for career readiness. Reaching out to ask for referrals also becomes easier if you have a pool of peers (company, vendor, client and industry association) who all know what you do and think highly of you.

  • Personal networking: Whether it be through sports, clubs, associations, impact work, or friends and family, this is your opportunity to tell the world who you are, and what you want to. You just have to be sure you’ve polished your pitch!

When you are practicing your pitch, take a look at Ummo, it is a great tool to check your time, your cadence, and how direct you are in communicating your message.