Five career kick-starting projects you can achieve this long weekend - Women's Agenda

Five career kick-starting projects you can achieve this long weekend

There’s nothing like a three-day break to get your career on track and run an audit of your personal and professional goals.

I’ve always believed the June long weekend is a three-day opportunity for projects: painting that spare room, building the deck, weeding the garden, cleaning the kitchen cupboards (perhaps I’ve been brainwashed by Bunnings). It’s too cold for the beach, too warm for the snow, and the school holidays haven’t come up to enable a longer holiday trip.

But this weekend I dare you to leave the domestic projects for another time – or perhaps never – and try something different. Use the time to get your career in order, to do all those personal career-aiding projects you’ve been meaning to do but haven’t yet gotten around to because, well, your career got in the way.

So where to start? Below are a few ideas you can easily achieve this weekend.

  1. Establish/Rework your social media presence

    Have you been meaning to get on Twitter? Or is your precious short Twitter profile in serious need of a revamp? Now’s the time to give your social media strategy some serious thought. The profiles published about you on various social media platforms will often be the first point-of-contact for a potential client or new employer. These profiles are just as important as the personal appearance you portray when meeting somebody in person. Re-think your personal social media strategy – what are you using it for, what’s your area of focus, which platforms should you reserve for your professional life and which for your personal life? While you’re at it, do a social media audit – any pics or status comments out there on the world wide web you’d rather your clients and colleagues didn’t see? Delete them.

  2. Think up or rethink your mentoring strategy

    Your current mentoring relationships might be getting stale. So what are the opportunities to start fresh? Mentally go through your existing networks and contacts and have a think about who you might approach – those who could be a mentor or others who could help you source a mentor. Be confident and draft up an email. Hit send and follow up with a phone call later on in the week.

  3. Get shopping! There are plenty of sales on at the moment and a new Winter coat’s the perfect way to revamp the working wardrobe.
  4. Revisit your 2013 goals – or plan some new ones for the next financial year. We’re almost halfway through the year, are you on your way to achieving what you set out to do in January? Do a goal audit and/or set some new ones to start on come 1 July.
  5. Make LinkedIn your best career friend. This platform gets its own mention because it’s so important for your career. Update your LinkedIn profile to make it current and relevant to where you want to go. Run through the list of contacts you have – who else could you connect with? How could you make better use of your existing contacts?

Let us know how you’ll be kickstarting your career this weekend.

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