Yes, you’re in career transition. Or you should be.

Today’s definition for career transition is not only about being between jobs. It should include planning for your next position. This includes how you are performing in your current role while developing your skills, expanding your network and positioning yourself for other opportunities.

If you’ve never been out of work, it’s easy to feel that it could never happen to you. The truth is that most people separated from their company never saw it coming. Even with long-tenured employees things can change quickly.  There’s a new boss, the business changes, or the market takes a dive.

So, what are you doing to be ready? Here are three things you should be doing now:

• Look for opportunities to expand your impact and influence within your current company. You’re on the inside now. You have access to people that those outside the company don’t have. Network, internally, and learn about other aspects of the business through informational interviews and getting involved in broad based projects.
• Build your network externally as well. Ask anyone out of work who didn’t do that before they lost their job and you will hear major regret. It’s a lot easier to reach out to people for networking conversations when you’re employed. Many of my clients feel uncomfortable reaching out to people they haven’t spoken to or really didn’t know that well in the first place because “they know why I’m calling”.
• Always be looking. Yes, you may feel happy and secure in your current role, but there are important reasons to put yourself out there.
  1. Things change fast. Ask anyone out of work and most will say they never thought it would happen to them.
  2. You never know what you’ll find. The opportunity of a lifetime may be out there for you.
  3. It’s always good to know your true worth in the marketplace. Are you being compensated fairly? Is someone willing to pay you more for the same or similar job?
  4. It’s always better to say “no” than to think, “Damn, I should have gone for that job”.

Today, career management isn’t an option. We are all in career transition. You need to always be looking for opportunities to grow within your current role and you need to expand your horizons in order to be prepared just in case you get a surprise call from the HR department.

If you want help identifying the steps of the process to help you plan for winning your next job opportunity, click here to receive a short guide entitled “The Sher Process to Your Next Job”.