Why should I grow my career horizontally? Or more importantly... why not?
These days, when you open the newspaper or click through your favourite news site, it's becoming more common to see articles about looming public sector layoffs, with predictions of more to come in the next several years.
With layoffs on this scale, opportunities for advancement may dry up or become fewer. And for the public servants who remain, it may be harder to remain positive, productive, and motivated.
One approach is to focus on developing your career horizontally, rather than vertically, at least for now. Exploring your chances of moving on or ahead horizontally opens a whole new world of possibilities.
Taking the time, for example, to develop your professional skills/competencies is one way you can build for the future now &mdash by thinking and acting horizontally.
What are competencies and why should I develop them?
Competencies are the skills, attributes and knowledge you may want to acquire as your career develops. In broadening your professional competencies you will also better understand your strengths &mdash and weaknesses &mdash thereby helping plan what you need to learn as your career develops. A strong breadth and depth of skills also demonstrates the range of abilities you have developed, which helps when applying for jobs or making career decisions.
In other words, to effectively build competencies you not only need to increase your knowledge and broaden your skill set, but also beef up your understanding of how these competencies can be used, your skills in applying them, and the right attitude to maximize their effectiveness in your career.