Like most of America, and indeed the world, you’re working from your home office now. Here are a few ways you can work on your career from home.
You’re either sitting on your couch working from home or you’re on your couch without a job. I’ve been in both of those positions; I put in my notice before I had another job lined up. It’s terrifying.
For both of those options the unknown is terrifying. If you just sit and wait in the unknown you’ll go crazy. You have to do. You have to boost your career from your couch.
Here are 9 simple but concrete ways you can work on your career from home:
Whether you think you need to or not you should be updating your LinkedIn. Go through and update your current/most recent duties. Flesh out otherwise shortly described actions. Make sure you are connected with all your past and present coworkers. Endorse people for skills, congratulate those with work anniversaries etc, and follow pages and companies you like. Did you get any written praise or press releases? Attach those to your page for others and potential employers to view!
Send an email, zoom message, or teams them. Give them an update about the work you’re doing or have accomplished while you’ve been working from home. Perhaps schedule a video chat so they can see your face. Make sure you look professional while you video chat! If you don’t have a job at the moment reach out to a previous boss that you had a good relationship with.
Like updating your LinkedIn you need to update your resume constantly. Not only do you want to keep your resume updated you want to want to make sure your resume looks pleasing to the eye. This isn’t a time for you to pull a Darryl from The Office and ask ‘Clippy’ for help. If you sign up for my emails you’ll automatically get a resume template that makes your resume look polished and professional. It is completely editable and has headings already filled in to give you ideas.
You want to make sure that being away from your coworkers doesn’t cause a total brake down in the relationships you’ve built with them. Reach out about non work: ask them how they’re coping with isolation, how they’re practicing social distancing, or how they’re handling being cooped up with the family. I bet no one else is really doing this so it’s a great time to create or deepen those relationships with your coworkers. Plus everyone is either scared or going stir crazy, or both, and they could probably use a reach out.
You’ve got some downtime and chances are you probably don’t want to watch whatever this Listen to Your Heart thing is so grab a book instead! Some of my favorite professional development books are: Extreme Ownership, Pitch Anything, You are a Badass, What Color is your Parachute?, To Hell with the Hustle, Leaders Eat Last, and Getting to Yes. There are so many good ones! I might need to do a full post on some of my favorites or more in depth ones about specific books.
This is the time to clean out your email inbox. Cut through the clutter and the trash emails you get so you can focus on what’s important. Check out my post for other ways to detox your inbox but a quick way to see which email lists you’re subscribed to is to type in COVID-19 or Coronavirus into the search tab because that’s going to pull up almost every email list you’re subscribed to. Plus when you unsubscribe from emails that are pushing sales on you or are making you feel less than adequate it boosts your savings and your mental health! And those two things are very important right now.
Pick at least three contacts that aren’t coworkers, the higher the better, and reach out to them. Look at your LinkedIn to see if there are some that you haven’t spoken to in a while. Reach out and if you’re at a loss for what to say look at the ‘reach out to coworkers’ step from above. See if they’re working from home or see what their set up is with their office. While you can reach out via LinkedIn if you have their email or cell its better to go personal than LinkedIn. It makes it more of a personal connection. This is the time to do it. I firmly believe it’s not what you know but who you know. Network, network, network.
I know I just said it’s not what you know it’s who you know but since you’ve networked you want to make sure your skill set is vast. You got down time and the space to learn a new skill. Start learning a new language, learn to code or SEO/Google analytics. Brush up on your Excel, PowerPoint, or Photoshop skills. Check out this course from University of Washington on Public Speaking. This is a fun way to work on your career from home – plus when you’ve learned the skill add it to your new resume and your LinkedIn!
Why am I specific about the ‘less experience’ part? This is a perfect time to start mentoring someone. Start a mentor-mentee relationship with the newest employee or the coworker you think has a ton of potential. Reach out and segue the relationship into how they’re handling working from home and then into their work. Make sure they know they can reach out to you if they have any questions and then when you get back into the office taken them for coffee.
When you take a break from working on your career check out these 8 Things to Do While you Practice Social Distancing.
