Smart New Year Career Resolutions

We all make New Year's resolutions to do better professionally, to get a promotion, make more money or to get a better job; but all too often we fail to harness these dreams to a workable plan of action. Here are six smart career resolutions, and how to implement them, which will enhance the coming year and the rest of your professional life.

Commit to your enlightened self-interest
The world of work is no longer secure as it was in your parent's day, lifetime job security is gone, replaced with job changes every three or four years, and perhaps three or more distinct careers in a worklife. Given this reality, your current job is just a stop along the way in what for most people is a full half-century work life; so make 2006 the year you replace blind loyalty to the corporation with loyalty to your own long-term economic survival. Do it this way:

Protect your job and boost your employability
Protect the job you have, for the security it brings and as a foundation for future growth. Everyday, technology changes the skills you need to compete in the workplace, so if you are not consistently developing new skills, you are being paid for abilities that are rapidly becoming obsolete.

There are a number of ways to maximize your skills, but the first steps always involve self-analysis and a talk to your boss. Ask for guidance about ways to improve your skills and performance. Implement the advice, and follow-up informally every 6-8 weeks to communicate both your commitment and progress. Simultaneously, look for problems in the department that need solving, be alert for vacuums and volunteer to fill them. Make every effort to demonstrate that you are a committed team player.

Visible commitment and consistent skill development will result in inner-circle membership, better assignments, raises, a more secure job and greater potential for promotion. Simultaneously, you will become a more desirable professional to other employers, further protecting your economic survival.

Connect to your profession
Just as your company has an inner circle, so too does your profession. Obviously, becoming connected to the most committed and best connected people in your field will have long-term benefits.

This makes professional association membership one of the easiest and smartest career strategies available. Association meetings will keep you abreast of new workplace skills, and you will get to know everyone who is anyone in your profession, plus you'll get access to a membership database, which is simply the best networking tool for your next job hunt or for gathering advice and expertise when facing other professional challenges.

Understand Job Search
Strategic career moves don't just happen. They start with an awareness of the realities in which they will be pursued and proceed from there. For example, you might not realize that a productive resume or CV does not simply recite your work history, but instead targets that ideal next job by focusing on those past experiences that most strongly support your candidacy. Make the time to understand how to put together a productive resume and execute an effective and timely job search; make a resolution to learn effective job search and interviewing techniques, the effort will repay you on a regular basis throughout your career.

Start a career management database
The Internet allows you to plan a job hunt in advance, and conduct it while holding down a job. Make time to post a basic profile on the appropriate job sites and save the jobs you are subsequently notified about in your personal career management database, and soon you'll have a job map of all the companies in your target area that typically hire professionals like you. The company that hired an accountant last year will be hiring one this year and next year too.

Steal time to plan your success
Make thirty minutes career management time for yourself every week by giving up one TV sitcom. Use that time for protecting your employability, connecting to your profession, understanding job search, updating your resume and building a career management database. Implement these simple, practical career resolutions and you will change dreams into realities, and all it will take is giving up one sit-com a week on the telly. Don't become a couch potato and watch life pass you by, commit to a plan and succeed in your life.