How to Put Your Career on the Fast Track

It may be that you need to find a new position within the company you're working. It may be that you need to find another industry altogether. But whatever your needs are, these five strategies will help you to achieve what you really want in your life.

Once you've defined the core ingredients of you who you are, you'll move to the next step of learning to send the right messages. Then you'll learn how to build the networks you need to make the right kinds of contacts in your industry.

You'll also learn how to strengthen your credibility with other professionals such as managers and clients. Finally, you'll learn to create a dashboard to measure your success in an ongoing way.

With Sherri Thomas's five proven strategies, you'll be on your way to a career change quickly and easily.

Sherri Thomas interviewed in the Wall St Journal - "Strategies for managing peers"

Sherri Thomas interviewed in the Wall St Journal - "Career success strategies for making a career change into a smaller company."

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You may be in a career you love, but feel like you've stalled out. It's important to know how to continue to grow and develop in the career you love so that you can continue to progress into positions with more responsibility and a higher salary.

You may have all the right skills and the ability to shine in your industry, but without the strategies for success you may feel like you're not able to move up. However, Career Coach Sherri Thomas provides the perfect solution for learning to maximize your strengths and abilities and then market yourself to those in your field.

You can go from being a team member to a team leader when you have the strategies to transform your career. Learning how to stand out from the crowd and promote your abilities is crucial to your success. Everyone knows it's not just what you know; it's also who you know and how you present yourself.

If you want to get promoted, land the big clients, and increase your earning power, you will get the results you want when you know and then practice Thomas's Career Smart: 5 Steps to a Powerful Personal Brand.

There's no limit to what you can accomplish when you understand your potential and you're able to help others understand it as well. Sherri Thomas can help you to personally improve your career either one on one or as a speaker or facilitator for your group. By following her strategies, you'll be guaranteed to improve your career and find more fulfillment in your work.

If you know what you want for your career, but you're not sure how to get your foot in the door, Career Coach Sherri Thomas is the perfect person to help you reach your goals.

In today's competitive job market, it's not enough to have talent and sill - you also have to be able to market yourself well. There are proven strategies that can help you to improve your job outlook.

You'll need to able to clearly investigate and understand what companies are hiring in your industry and what kinds of positions are available. You'll need to research your chosen field and find out if you're even in the right place to make it happen. Once you know where to look, you'll need to know who to talk to.

One of the most important things you can do is to create a powerful network of contacts to help you make career links. But once you've found the perfect position opening, you'll need even more. Starting with a resume that's polished and tailored correctly for your industry, you'll need to find a way to present yourself on paper in a way that leaps off the page.

And once you land an interview, you'll want to know the tips and tricks for making sure that you shine among the competition. Knowing these strategies can be the difference between decorating your new office and being sent back to the drawing board.

Using Sherri Thomas's techniques, you'll have success finding and securing a position in your chosen industry. And once you've made a successful career change, her strategies will also help you keep that job and even move up. You can have the career you've always dreamed of when you have the right strategies for your success.

Career expert Sherri Thomas has been quoted at Monster.com

Sherri would love to have you be her friend on Facebook!

Interviewing is intimidating, nerve wracking, and can make you feel like you're two heartbeats away from having a heart attack. You only have one shot at making a great first impression so you need to make sure you're prepared to give the right answers, and ask the right questions during your next interview.

Giving the right answers for an interview is so much easier when you know what the interviewer really wants to know about you. There are just five key questions going through your interviewer's mind and once you understand those questions, you can be more prepared, more confident, and feel less anxiety during the interview. So let's take it one by one, what your Interviewer REALLY wants to know about you:

1. Can you do the job?
These questions are usually very black and white. Either you have what it takes to succeed in the position or not. Before the interview, be sure to analyze the job description so that you fully understand the job requirements.

Be prepared to talk about your skills, knowledge, and training that will help you perform the job successfully. Your answers should be specific and focus on results and accomplishments.

2. What "extras" do you bring?
For most job openings, a hiring manager knows about 90% of the work that the new employee will be responsible for, but not the remaining 10%. That is because they want to know, What can you (the new employee) ADD to the position?

For example, if you're going for a job as a Pubic Relations manager, you may have some experience in marketing or desktop publishing that is not required for the job, but might be valuable to the company. If you meet all, or most of the job requirements, then this extra skill may help position you as the top candidate for the job.

So before you go into a job interview, think about any additional skills and talents that you can bring to the position.

3. Where are you at risk?
Every new employee is a risk to a company. Whether it's a specific requirement that you don't meet, or potentially being overqualified for the position, or a potential risk for relocating, etc. So, spend some time thinking about where you are a risk.

I like to beat the interviewer to the punch by stating where I'm a risk and then reassuring her why it won't be a problem. For example, if the job requires knowledge of a specific type of software, sign-up for some training before your interview so that you can say that you've already registered for some training to learn more about the software. The point is that you need to be able to discuss the area(s) where you are a risk, and then immediately follow-up with what you're doing to close the gap.

You can use this same approach to answer the question, "Tell me about any weaknesses you have." Again, bring up an area for improvement, but quickly add what you are already doing to strengthen that area. This shows that you are serious about your professional development and take the initiative to grow and improve your skills.

4. Does the interviewer like you? Will you fit in with the corporate culture?
This is an area that you really cannot take personally. Either the culture and the team are a good fit for you, or they aren't. And believe me, it's better to know up front during the interview, than to have a pit in your stomach every day as you walk into your new office.

I once interviewed with a Sales VP at a television station. After 1 ½ hours of interviewing, I really couldn't tell if he wanted to hire me or not, so I simply asked, "Do you think I would be a good fit with your team?" He told me that he didn't think so because he allows his team to vent, kick the garbage can and curse like sailors in the office. I appreciated his candor because the reality is that I would not be happy or successful in an environment like that.

During your next interview, be prepared to discuss your professional style and work ethics. Also, be sure that the ways you dress, speak and act align to the company and the position for which you are seeking. Is the company formal (think Wall Street, a top law firm, or a hospital), or is it more informal (think Google, Starbucks or the YMCA)? Perhaps the company is informal, but the position is formal (think sales, human resources or executive management.)

5. Will you be able to work out the compensation/benefits package?
This is usually the final and perhaps one of the easiest areas to determine if you are a good match for the job role. Be prepared to talk about a salary range that is acceptable to you. I do not recommend giving an exact salary since the benefits package almost always includes room for negotiating vacation days, stock allowance, bonus payouts, perks, etc. But you should be prepared to give a salary range that you would accept.

Sherri Thomas is President of Career Coaching 360, an international speaker, and author of "Career Smart - 5 Steps to a Powerful Personal Brand." Career Coaching 360 provides career planning, management coaching, and leadership development support to help professionals change careers quickly and easily.

Every day that you're unemployed, or in a lower level position, means wasted income. Days can turn into weeks, weeks can turn into months, and before you know it - you've just lost $10,000, $20,000, or even more had you been employed.

So how can you bullet proof your career so that you stay in high demand?

A new client I'll call "Jim" recently called me and said that he had gone through a change in management which resulted in losing his 7-year position as the General Manager of a prestigious golf course.

He told me that after one year of searching, he had taken the "only job he could get" which was working part-time in the golf pro shop at a different golf course. After talking for a few minutes, it became painfully clear why Jim wasn't able to get back on his career path.

1. Keep yourself marketable. Jim shared that the golf industry was changing and that companies were requiring a specific kind of training and certification to be a General Manager. But Jim wasn't stepping up and getting the training. He'd rather fight the system (which he was losing) and not pay the two-thousand dollars for the training in the hopes of one day getting hired again as a General Manager. What Jim was actually doing was down sizing his career, his morale, and his paycheck by electing not to get the training.

Never let your career sit on a shelf longer than 6-months. Never! Keep the same drive and discipline that you had when you were employed. Get focused. Get a plan. Make it happen. Wallowing isn't allowed. Create opportunities to keep yourself marketable. Use your "in-between" time to get any training or education you may need. If you're not working, then start freelancing or consulting. Join an association's Board of Directors, or at minimum, a committee. These strategies will help keep you visible, expand your network, and boost your resume.

2. Fish where the fish are. Another mistake Jim was making was not having a solid job search plan. Where are your potential employers? Find out by reading trade magazines, industry publications, company websites and classified ads in your local newspapers to learn which industries are hiring, which companies are hiring, and what the hot jobs are.

Then, start attending industry conferences, trade shows, business networking events and association meetings. Also, join professional networking sites such as LinkedIn.com to get connected to industry leaders and company decision makers. Make it a priority to get connected, and stay connected, to people who can inspire you, hire you, or introduce you to potential employers.

3. Be a resource to others. Never give the impression that you're hungry for a job. Instead, you want to be seen as someone who drives initiatives, solves problems and leads teams. This is one reason why you want to consult, freelance, or volunteer while you're in between jobs.

Get personal with your professional network. Send out links to reports, case studies, press releases and websites that you think might interest them. Invite them to business networking events, and introduce them to other movers and shakers. Influencers are drawn to those who are resourceful.

4. Give your resume the "it" factor. When it comes to resumes - looks are everything! If you've been applying for jobs that you're qualified for, but you're not getting the interviews, then you need a stronger resume.

Hiring managers can have stacks and stacks of resumes piled high on their desk which means that if your resume doesn't have the "it" factor - you're toast. Don't lose out on a great job because your resume doesn't stand up against your competition. Instead, invest in a professional resume critique. You'll get specific strategies based on your goals, strengths and accomplishments to get the attention of hiring managers and put yourself in high demand!

5. Interview smart. If you're getting interviews, but not job offers - then you need stronger interviewing skills.

Interviewing brings up a lot of anxiety mostly because it seems that the interviewer has so much power and you, the one being interviewed, have so little. But there are things you can do to balance the scales of power. Invest in a session with an interview coach before your next interview. You'll get crisp, solid strategies to learn how showcase your strengths, answer the tough questions and what to say to close the interview.

And one more bonus tip: consider hiring a " career coach. A career coach can partner with you as you navigate through a stormy situation. A career coach can give you the tools and support to help put your career back on track. And some career coaches can give you a roadmap and tell you exactly how to get from "Point A" to "Point B."

Meeting with a career coach means dedicating one whole hour to talking about you about your career goals and challenges. Be prepared to come into a session with your toughest questions, biggest challenges, and an open mind to get new ideas, strategies and best practices to get your career on track!

The point is that if you've been unemployed or at a lower level position for longer than six months, then you need to shake things up! Try different career strategies and start thinking outside the box. And never, ever give up your drive, ambition and courage that it takes to move your career forward.

Your job is out there waiting for you. You just need to go get it!

Sherri Thomas is President of Career Coaching 360, an international speaker, and author of "Career Smart - 5 Steps to a Powerful Personal Brand." Career Coaching 360 provides career planning, management coaching, and leadership development support to help professionals change careers quickly and easily.

Change is scary. Change can be intimidating. The fear of change, fear of failure, even the fear of the unknown. EVERYONE has trepidation about change. EVERYONE. But when the time comes that you cannot stay in the same situation any longer - it's time to make your move. If you're ready to take action and make a career change, then arm yourself with these five (5) resources to help make your career change easier. Read article>>