Experience vs Income

What is more valuable, the experience you gather from working in a particular position or the compensation for the work you create?

Let's first isolate each variable, in order to distinguish there contents. First, you have experience, which combines the communication and technical skills, along with the cognitive and business skills that you gather while "experiencing" your job. As you gain more and more experience, your resume becomes more distinguishable and expanded. Experience is how you distinguish yourself from the competition, when interviewing and while moving up the corporate hierarchy. I consider noteworthy experience to be success on a major project that has direct business impact on your company. Other experience is more day-to-day work that can be summarized in a few sentences. Since this experience is what differentiates you and markets you to various audiences or employers, it is the major factor in granting you a high salary. Compensation is the capital you acquire from experience and accomplishments. The more experience, success and major projects that you are involved with, the more compensation you will obtain.

Conclusion: An increase in experience will yield an increase in job compensation.

What this means to you: Focus on gaining experience first and let your high salary follow!

Politics

You could be the hardest worker and have the most intellect in your selected field, but without strategic politics, you will not achieve your full potential. Politics, a factor that increases as company size increases, are relationship-centric. Remember always hearing "its not what you know, it's who you know," well that isn't completely true. If you are strong in politics, establish relationships amongst a broad network AND are intellectual and skilled in your position, then you will accelerate. Although, "who you know" takes precedent, if you are not a performer, you will not last in a new position.

Now you are wondering "how do I play politics." Politics is strategic and must be learned by experience in a work setting. Terms like "kissing up" or "brown-nosing" to superiors are part of politics, but it is more about displaying your talents to the right people at the right time, while praising their efforts. For those of you who feel they don't need to use this tactic to get ahead, then you are letting others steal the spotlight because the world runs on relationships and managers are looking for candidates that share similar views and work hard for "them".

At work you might notice politics when:

• A co-worker compliments a managers work on a project.
• Your in a meeting and a manager highlights a key point or view and a co-worker talks with the manager afterward, displaying agreement.
• A display of an elevator-pitch to a manager in the hallway

In conclusion, your work ethic and intelligence will only get you so far. The relationships you create will enable doors to open rapidly.

SWOT

Instead of basing a SWOT analysis around a product or competitor, let's focus it directly on you as an individual. Focus on maximizing your strengths, reducing your weaknesses, identifying opportunities and stabilizing threats. You may do an exercise, where you brainstorm and write down each of these areas, as they pertain to your current situation. Its all about strategizing ,through foreseeing the future through your current situation. Feedback is a great tool in order to uncover your weaknesses, while strengths are more apparent in your daily life. Opportunities and threats must be analyzed at a deeper level.

• Strengths & Weaknesses: These areas are easily identified through feedback from others and your own view of yourself. Your goal should to be overcome your weaknesses by investing in education and to enhance or increase your strengths by gaining more real world experience.
  
• Opportunities & Threats: Always be aware of currents threats, such as competitors in your organization or environmental factors that you may not control. Opportunities is the most important part of the equation because without opportunities, you will stay stationary in your current position. Opportunities are open doors, which allow you to progress or gain new experience in different fields or have mobility and move up.
  

Credibility

The term credibility essentially gravitates to those who understand the principles of marketing and apply the concepts in their lives. Credibility is what you are judged on and what your net value is based upon. It is also a measure of your comprehension of a particular field or practice. The more credibility you bring to the table, the better the chance you will have to succeed in any situation. It can be either spoken, written or personal, but it is formulated by perspective, relationships, knowledge of a field or work accomplished.

Credibility defined: the quality of being believable or trustworthy

If you examine this definition closely, the word trust is mentioned. The idea here is that if your manager trusts and believes you will accomplish a task, then you have credibility on your side. Without the credibility, you might not even get assigned a specific task or even obtain a job. Credibility must be earned, just as your trust in another person must be earned over time. The more credible you are, the more responsibility that your manager will trust you with. Credentials, such as the very elements you would view on a resume, forecasts credibility but is not the only indicator, which is why you still must prove yourself.

As a brand, you must establish a line of credibility with your peers and co-workers, so that they entrust you with projects and the ideas you conceive. Without this element, you will have no mobility or success in life. Credibility is centric in order to build your brand and push your career further.

Losing credibility is losing trust and losing trust is losing a job.