Top Skills That Will Supercharge Your Career

A successful, happy, and sustainable career goes through many stages and each of them requires specific skills in order to achieve your career goals. However, most people don’t manage their career stages and skills proactively. They work hard, get stuff done, and hope that someone will notice and reward them.

They may brush up on job search skills when it’s time to look for a new job. But once they get it, they tend to settle into a routine where career considerations only ever surface as a reaction to burnout, being overlooked for a promotion, or some other negative event.

In this article, we’ll go through how to think about your career stages and which skills to focus on and when. Picking even a few skills to work on proactively could mean a big difference for your career success because even small improvements can have a big impact.

So let’s start with the stages.

The 4 Career Stages

The first stage is one everyone is familiar with and no one enjoys - job search. Most people are very active when they look for a new job. But waiting to develop the skills you need to land your dream job until you’re in the middle of the process is often too late and can decrease your chances of landing it.

The second career stage is job onboarding. While it may seem logical to look at a new job as one career stage (that’s how we show them on resumes, right?), the first 90 days are critical for your career success. That’s when your new manager and stakeholders are excited about having a new hire and you have an opportunity to establish yourself as a rock star rather than just another employee. We’ve all felt the urgency to impress our new colleagues but it often leads to people diving in too deep, too soon. And instead of nailing their first 90 days, they end up wasting the opportunity on busywork and dead-end projects.

The third stage is performance growth. Once you get a new job, you’ll likely stay in it for at least 2-3 years. This is the time to get settled and develop the skills you need to increase your job performance to the highest level that’s sustainable for you. While job search and onboarding are sprints, performance growth is a marathon that, if done correctly, will pay off many times over further down the line.

The fourth career stage is career advancement. Advancing your career is all about having a career strategy and a plan for the long term. It’s about looking beyond your current job and proactively building towards your dream job. The fact of the matter is that true career success, however you define it, is often built on things we did years ago. This is true regardless of whether you’re trying to climb the career ladder as quickly as possible or looking to switch careers.

The 3 Always-On Skills

While each of the four career stages is different, there are certain skills that are relevant and important regardless of which stage you’re in.

The first of these “always-on” skills is personal branding & storytelling. And we’re not talking about becoming an influencer who shares every aspect of their personal life with the people around them. This is a fundamental communication skill, tailored for the professional context. It’s about learning how to strategically communicate what we’re good at and passionate about to the right people. As wonderful as it would be if every person important to our careers magically knew all the right things about us, that’s not how reality works. You know what they say about trees falling in the forest with no one around to hear it? The same goes for professional achievements. Learning how to tell our stories is a key skill, whether the goal is a promotion, a new job, or some career outcome 5 years down the line.

The second always-on skill is networking. Having a network matters at every stage of our careers. The vast majority of open jobs get filled with people from the hiring manager’s extended network. Networking increases our chances of getting paid and promoted. They also open up new opportunities, including for jobs that we might not be the most obvious candidates for. And best of all, networks can be built and maintained with much less effort than most people think.

The final always-on skill is mindset management. We’ve all experienced confidence issues, like the impostor syndrome. Learning techniques for how to manage our mindset is often the difference between grabbing a new opportunity and losing it. Career success requires us to do things we perceive as risky, like taking on a new project even if we’re not sure we’re qualified for it. But even more importantly, the right mindset is a prerequisite for a happy career! Mindset struggles often lead to a persistent state of stress and dread that isn’t just limited to our careers but spills over into our personal lives.

Job Search Skills

A key skill when searching for jobs is writing A-player resumes. These resumes are outcome-based and present you as the person most likely to be successful in the job you’re applying for. Do this and you won’t have to be the most qualified candidate since your resume will be better than 99% of all resumes out there.

Job seekers should also learn how to tap into the full range of job opportunities available to them. There is certainly a time and place for looking at job boards. But ultimately, only 15% of all jobs get filled this way. The remaining 85% are filled through the hidden job market. Meaning, they go to people who get referred for jobs, are introduced to the hiring manager by someone they trust, or get headhunted. So knowing how to find job opportunities outside job boards is a key skill for successful professionals.

Lastly, job search success is highly dependent on a candidate’s interviewing and negotiation skills. While a great resume will get you into the room, these are the skills you’ll need to actually land your dream job and salary. Interview processes, especially those for senior positions, frequently last more than 6 weeks. Knowing how to build relationships, answer interview questions the right way, and negotiate a win-win deal can be the difference between landing your next job in a couple of months or still looking one year later.

Job Onboarding Skills

When you’re just starting a new job, you are given an opportunity that other employees at the company don’t have - time to learn without the pressure to perform. Managing the learning phase the right way can set you up for quick success. But very few people do it. Instead of taking the opportunity to understand the company culture, how the company creates value, and what the important initiatives are, most people are desperate to get busy. But to a hiring manager, it’s more important to have a new employee who understands the business than a busy bee.

A key to nailing your first 90 days is to prioritize your focus areas the right way. While your first 30 days should be heavily focused on learning, days 30-60 should be a mix of planning and execution. This way, you set yourself up to deliver outcomes during days 60-90.

The final job onboarding skill is to scope and prioritize early wins. As your first 90 days start coming to an end, you’ll want to crown your onboarding with an important deliverable or two. Assuming you’ve learned how the business works and successfully transitioned into execution, you should be able to produce outcomes that are meaningful for the business, even if they are small in scope. Having a productive new employee up and running within 90 days is a huge success for any hiring manager.

Performance Growth Skills

Once you’re onboarded, it’s time to think about how to become a top performer in the new job. A great way to do that is to develop your prioritization and productivity skills. There’s no silver bullet for maximizing performance. Rather, it’s a result of doing the right things over time. As your outcomes and impact start compounding, you’ll get more responsibility, promotions, and money. And for that to happen, you need to learn how to consistently prioritize the right tasks while saying no to the kind of busy work that will put you off track.

To maximize your impact and outcomes, you should focus on developing your leadership and influencing skills. This applies even if you are an individual contributor. Knowing how to create results through others is a force multiplier regardless of your job, title, or reporting line.

People who are good at acquiring new skills tend to be more successful over time. Many people experience career stagnation because they lack the hard and soft skills to take their next career step. These days, it’s easier than ever to acquire new skills. From joining new projects at your company to volunteering or taking online courses - the opportunities are endless if you only know what you need and plan ahead.

Finally, performance growth is also dependent on achieving the right work-life balance. A career is a marathon, not a sprint. And so is maintaining a work-life balance. It’s not something that’s done once but rather an ongoing process that involves decision-making, prioritization, and mindset management. People who maintain a healthy balance over time are able to perform in their jobs more consistently and develop faster than their peers.

Career Advancement Skills

To achieve your long-term career goals, whatever they may be, it’s useful to know how to create a career strategy. Most people either bounce from job to job or just follow the career path that’s in front of them. But if you want to achieve specific outcomes like landing a job, achieving a certain amount of wealth, or living a certain lifestyle, you need to start with clarity on what your goals are and create a plan to make it happen.

A skill that many people don’t understand is actually a skill, is promotion planning! A common view is that a promotion is a reward for a job well done. But there’s more to it than that. Employees who work proactively and strategically with their hiring manager and stakeholders to set and achieve the right targets, and jump through all the necessary hoops, will drastically increase their chances of getting promoted.

Just like resume writing, career advancement is about outcomes. That’s why planning and managing outcomes is a key skill. All outcomes are not created equal. People who know how to identify the most important ones, and work proactively to achieve them, tend to be more successful than others.

Another thing that the most successful people have in common is that they contribute beyond their scope. Completing your tasks well and on time is great. But strictly speaking, that’s what you’re being paid to do. Knowing how to consistently identify areas where you can create additional value over time will lead to more promotions and new job opportunities.

Do You Need Help Advancing Your Career?

At Tiles Collab, we help ambitious professionals with all career stages and skills. If you need help advancing your career, go ahead and schedule a free-of-charge 30-minute call with us to discuss how we can best help you.