Career Mistakes You Should Never Make

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If you want to have a long and successful career, you need to work hard and be very careful not what you do and do not do.

Below are some surprisingly common career mistakes that you should really avoid making if you want to climb the career ladder and achieve all of your work-based goals:

Misbehaving on social media
Social media is a big part of most of our lives right now. Many of us have both professional and personal social media profiles on sites like Twitter and Facebook. As a result, many of us have been led to believe that as long as we are professional on our work-based profile.s anything goes on our personal ones. Unfortunately. This is often not the case.

More and more, companies are including clauses about social media conduct in work contracts. If you do anything on social media, even in your personal profile, which could be considered to be bringing the company into disrepute, it could get you into a lot of trouble.

If you would not be happy for your boss, co-workers, or clients to see it, then you should really think twice about posting it on any social media that is visible to the public. If you must post less than professional content, then ensure that your profiles are as locked down as they can possibly be.

Not keeping your skills up to date
In the modern world. Things move so fast, Technology changes in the blink of an eye, new techniques for working are developed, and what was once in is very quickly out again. If, then, you want to maintain a strong and successful career, the worst thing you can do is to stay stagnant.

You need to work hard to ensure that you are always up to date and aware of the latest development in your industry, whether that means getting your BLS certification or learning the latest search engine optimization techniques. Fail to do this and you will soon be left behind, overlooked for promotion, and ultimately obsolete.

Not understanding your company's values
This is a mistake that a lot of people make because they do not even think about it as being of much importance. They place a lot of value on working hard, having the right skills, and schmoozing the right people, but very little. On the ethos of the company.

This may work well enough if you want to stay at a low level in their company, but if you want your career to progress, and you want to be promoted, then you need to impress your bosses and one of the best ways to do that is by fully understanding their values and living up to them as best you can. Study their mission statement and act accordingly.

Treating people poorly
This one should be really obvious, but if you treat co-workers, especially those who are at a lower pay grade than you, badly then you are going to get the wrong kind of reputation, and no one is going to want to promote you into a position where you could alienate other employees and foster an unpleasant work culture.

It is always better to be kind to everyone you meet while also maintaining your own boundaries and not becoming a pushover. That is the right way to behave at work and put yourself on track for promotion.

Avoiding events
Yes, trade events and conferences can be pretty boring affairs at the best of times, but if you are serious about building a strong and lasting career, then you do need to make the effort to go along, listen, and most importantly network with the people you meet there. The more people you know in your industry, the more opportunities are likely to come your way – it really is that simple.

Promising more than you can deliver
No one likes an employee who is all talk and no action, yet so many people oversell their abilities. Doing this is not a smart move because if you fall short, then you will be looked upon even less favorably than a co-worker who is achieving at the same level simply because you rose everyone's expectations of yourself unnaturally.

So, sure, sing your own praises about the things you really can do well. But try to avoid overselling yourself and your skills if you want to get ahead.

Turning down opportunities
On the other hand, if you do get an opportunity to advance your career, then one of the biggest mistakes you can often make is talking yourself out of taking it because you are scared that you are not ready.

Obviously, if you think it is way beyond your abilities, it may be smart to wait for a year or two to develop your skills and look for similar opportunities, but if you are just avoiding doing so because you feel a lack of confidence or a worry about the future, then you need to get over it, embrace the chance and chase the dream. You aren't going to get far in your career if you always hold yourself back out of fear, after all!

Not preparing for interviews
One of the biggest mistakes you can make when it comes to career progression is not taking interviews seriously enough and not taking the time to fully prepare for them. Your interview is your opportunity to blow the panel away and impress them with your gregarious, knowledge, skills, and ability to do the job.

You need to take the time to research the company, think of some interesting questions to ask, pick out the perfect outfit and maybe even conduct a mock interview so you can practice if you are serious about impressing on the day.

If you can avoid making these common career mistakes, you will stand a much better chance of being successful in your chosen field now and in the future, and your working life will be so much more enjoyable as a result too.