Five Things You Can Do to Boost Your Career

The economy is starting to recover in spots. Are you ready for it? How well positioned are you to take advantadge of the recovery?

When things begin looking good again, will you be in survival mode, treading water until your strength gives out? Or will you have positioned yourself well enough that you maximize your return?

Here are five things you can do today to position yourself as an 'overnight success' in the next year or two.

1. Join your local user group. Whether you're into Java, .Net, Ruby, or Agile, there's probably a great group in your neighborhood already. Meetup.com is a great place to start looking for one.


2. Join a few national mailing lists. Both Yahoo Groups and Google Groups house thousands of mailings on topics from Agile to lean to test automation and more.


3. Attend local miniconferences. Here in RTP we've just had a TED conference, an Agile Coach Camp, a few other evening events, and more. We've got Citcon (CI and test automation) coming, as well as a one day Intro to Agile mini-conference. And those are just the ones of the top of my head! What's going on in your area? Contact your MS evangilist, or tool vendor of choice and ask them when they're coming to town.


4. Speak up! Be active in your local user group's mailing, or your national list. Ask a few softball questions. Ask for help. Answer someone else's questions. But don't sit on the sidelines. Lurking is fine until you learn the group, but get in the game.


5. Pick your favorite tool and write a How To article. Then post it on your blog. (Don't have a blog? Then visit Blogger.com and you'll have one in five minutes!) There are lots of people who want to learn how to use tool X or technique N. Write it up and post it.

At the end of the day, and of every day, you've got to decide if you've got a job or a career. If it's "just a job", then by all means, just survive and try to make it through to the next paycheck. But if it's something you want to truly succeed at, don't hide! Get out and reposition yourself!

Blatant commercial plug You can find even more tips on tuning up your career in Career 2.0: Take Control of Your Life.

You can also check out Land the Tech Job You Love by Andy Lester and The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development by Chad Fowler.

The information is out there. Will you use it?

Scaffolding Your Goals for Success

Here's a great post from the always useful Lifehacker site. The article offers up tips for actually reaching those goals we keep setting for ourselves. I like the scaffolding concept a lot.

Scaffold Your New Year's Resolutions for Lasting Change

What's worked for you? How do you improve your goal's chances for success?

Brilliant Blog Posting on Your Long Term Career Direction

Marshal Brain is a local entrepreneur who's sold a lot of books, has his own TV show, and generally considered a very smart guy. He spoke at Duke on how to make a million dollars.

Do you track this blog? Then read this article.

How to Make a Million Dollars

Tips For Staying Motivated and On Course

This post has a list of techniques you can use to keep yourself on track. There's a bit of overlap with the ideas we present in the Career 2.0 book, but it's well worth reading.

33 Ways to Get and Keep Yourself Motivated

Get a College Refresher on a Budget!

This article on Hacker News is right up the Career 2.0 alley! It's an online service that lets you learn as much, or as little, as you want for a flat rate.

This is perfect the unemployed or the underemployed who want to polish their skills and line themselves up for the job they want. In fact, the first example in the article is someone who did just that.

Here's the article College for $99 a Month

The actual website for the courses is Straighter Line

And of course, a hat tip to Hacker News, a great source of information on a variety of subjects.

Career 2.0 talk in Boston Tonight

I'll be speaking at the New England Java User's Group tonight. It's quite an honor to speak for this group... they're in their 10th year as a user's group!

If you're in the area, please come out. Here's the link.

http://www.nejug.org/events/show/95

Friday, I'll be in Charlotte at Agilepalooza. It's an open space event, but I might try to reprise the material there as well!

Get 10% Off Career 2.0 Through July 31st!

We're running a promotion and offering 10% off Career 2.0 until the end of July. Enter code ‘JULYCONTEST10’ at checkout and you'll save 10% on your purchase.

If you've been waiting for the perfect time to stock up on birthday presents, or just wanting to put a bit of polish on your future career prospects, now is the time!

Career 2.0: Take Control of Your Life!