8 Things You Can Do to Improve Your Career Outlook in 2022

The start of a new year is always seen as an opportunity for a fresh new start in many aspects of life. Whether you are looking to make changes in your personal life, pursue personal growth, or make a big move, a new year is always filled with promise. One area of your life that you may want to focus on in 2022 is your career. It’s very easy for people to become too comfortable or “stuck” in their career if they don’t take the time to examine how they feel, where they are and where they want to go.

Here are eight things you can do to improve your career outlook in 2022, ensuring you make the very best of this year.

Table of Contents

Are You Doing What You Love?

Wondering where to get started? A little soul searching is the perfect place to begin. Give yourself the time to sit down, reflect on your career, and ask yourself if you’re doing what you love and are passionate about? If not, what would make you happy? What would make you excited to get out of bed each morning and head to your job?

Being happy in your job isn’t necessary but it can make a world of difference. At the very least, it should provide some level of satisfaction.

Go to Job Fairs and Check-Out Online Postings

But what job would make you happy? It may be that you need to spread your wings and look at what’s out there. You may not even know what job would be perfect, and what best appeals to your skills and interests. This brings us to the next tip – attending job fairs and checking out online postings.

You don’t have to be serious yet about making a career jump, but at least it can show you what’s out there. What jobs are trending, what’s most in-demand, what new technology exists that could appeal to you in a career, and what would fit with your vision for the future? Job fairs in particular can be helpful since you can often sit and chat with various people, getting more information and tips that can help open doors in the future.

Networking Can Be Your Best Tool

This leads us to networking, which you’ll want to do each time you attend a job fair, industry event, trade show or any other opportunity that lets you meet people in your industry. When networking you want to put your best foot forward, come across confident but not cocky, and always be professional.

Get a Mentor

Why not make 2022 the year you get a mentor? Mentors are wonderful in that they are a supportive ear that will listen to you, offer advice and insight, and help you to find your way. You can pick a mentor in your field or one in a field that you find interesting and that you may want to break into. Mentors can also be great for networking and help to introduce you to key industry experts.

Just be sure not to overdo it with the mentor, you don’t want to be bothering them too much. It’s about quality not quantity in terms of the time you have with your mentor.

Set Career Goals and Map Out the Timeline

Once your career vision starts to take shape, this is the perfect time to set career goals. There should be a combination of short and long-term goals, and they need to be attainable and realistic. Once you have a list of your goals now you can work on the timeline and the steps needed to reach each milestone. Think of it as your blueprint to success.

This blueprint will be important to refer to as you pursue your dreams, but don’t forget you also need to be flexible. Your timeline shouldn’t be fixed, rather it needs to remain at least a bit fluid so it can adjust to surprises, bumps, and challenges along the way.

Enhance Your Skills and Knowledge Base

As you’re taking stock of where you are and where you want to be, this is also a great opportunity to enhance your skills and knowledge base. On-the-job experience is one way to do that, so is furthering your education. The DBA online through Aston University is meant for professionals in their field who want to take things a step further and prepare to one day become an executive. This is something you could fit into the timeline you are mapping for yourself, taking into account how long it will take to graduate from the program.

Challenge Yourself

Have you reached the point in your career where you feel comfortable in your job and there aren’t many surprises? Has it started to feel a bit monotonous – the same thing each day? If you’ve answered yes to these questions then it may be time to challenge yourself. This can be quite scary, especially if you’re not the risk-taking type. But remember, if you don’t challenge yourself and you don’t take risks, you’ll never know how good things could be and you risk living with regrets.

Don’t Let Fear Guide You

This particular tip is much easier said than done. No matter who you are and how much confidence you have, you still have a bit of fear in you. It’s natural and it’s not necessarily a bad thing as fear can help keep you on your toes, look at situations with a critical eye, be more careful, and stop you from making a mistake. At the same time, if left unchecked, fear can guide you and hold you back.

Instead of just pushing the fear out of your mind completely, which is pretty hard to do, why not approach it from an analytical standpoint? Is there any truth or factual data that the fear is rooted in? If not, why are you giving it so much power?