Whether you’re a seasoned executive or a fresh-faced and hungry college grad, you can never escape well-meaning career advice.
While you’d be wise to accept anything coming your way with a grain of salt and plenty of personal research, you want to skip these four pieces of outdated career advice right off the bat.
A Separation of Church & State
The conventional wisdom goes something like this: there should, at all times, remain a strict and yet invisible divisadero between your professional persona – the man or woman who interacts with co-workers, contributes in meetings and represents the company externally, as a client-facing brand – and your personal life.
And the bifurcation between the two lends itself from anything as seemingly innocuous as interacting on social media (or having a presence on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram that’s not strictly sanctioned by the company) to having to disavow certain personal “issues” that may present an obstacle to your present or future work.
Going through a personal or family struggle? Keep it at home. Having trouble with your kids? Don’t bring it to work.
While it’s true that no one needs to air their personal laundry in the workplace and the mark of professionalism is to refrain from spilling too much information in a context where it’s irrelevant, this piece of advice is completely outdated because of a change in the way we work.
Progressive companies are more and more places where relationships are privileged over “professionalism” and empathy is encouraged. Shared experiences, then, and a relaxed atmosphere where there is a definite sense of care are one way to form these relationships.
There’s Only One Way To Go: Up
People tend to think that making a lateral move – that is to say, holding steady on salary but moving into a similar position within a completely different niche or group – is not only a foolish move but a total waste of time.
On the surface, this logic checks out. But this is only if you see your career – and, indeed, your entire life – as a series of moves in a game of snakes and ladders, where the main goal is to move up.
Otherwise else you’re simply treading water, right? Wrong.
In reality, there are a range of complementary and transferrable skills you can expose yourself to, master and then organically incorporate as part of your expertise.
The truth is, there is no one way “up” – and, more often than not, no one ever made innovative moves sticking to a path well-trodden.
Pushback
If you’ve ever observed workers in Japan and India, you’ll see that, despite the open-concept layouts and relaxed interior office spaces, a hierarchy of authority still exists.
Bosses’ and managers’ offices line the perimeter of the space and people still stand up when figures of authority walk in. No one leaves before the boss does, for fear of total judgment and social ostracization.
While this kind of organizational structure is becoming more and more obsolete, the inherent and implicit sensitivity that “junior” associates and positions have for the authority of senior managerial roles can translate into sheer acceptance of the status quo.
But pushback should not only be encouraged, it should be privileged: corporate survival at minimum and corporate excellence at best can often hinge upon the views and experiences of its most junior positions.
Case in point: leaders in the automotive industry, BMW, and the appliance manufacturers of Bosch invite and incorporate feedback from their most junior positions as well as line and assembly workers in the design and manufacturing of new units.
Keep That Resume Updated
The last myth is the most deadliest because it signifies the last attempts to hold on to a world that is monolithic and narrow. The sage advice that a resume is your best-seller is completely flawed.
Now, it is the quality and success of the projects you have worked on that matters. Contemporary workers are learning that the way you can craft a narrative around your successive moves is what truly makes an impression.
And with an explosion in non-traditional and private educators like “Bloc” and “General Assembly”, formerly boot-camp style courses for certificates in programming and online marketing, it’s more and more common to see stellar candidate unexpectedly crop up with nothing but an impressive and heavy-hitting portfolio.
There will come a day where even these four myths become outdated. The only true thing is that change in the workplace is not only inevitable, it’s the norm. Resist and be left behind. Embrace…and rise with the tide.
About the Author:
Sarah Merekar is primarily a storyteller who loves to work with and in several different mediums, on various platforms and see how these co-exist and complement each other. She loves hacking product sales and understanding how content creation has an effect on this process. The content she creates for clients is high quality, highly tailored, and on brand, specifically in the form of digital & brand copywriting, design and video.
