More than half (56%) of workers are looking for a new job or plan to look for a new job in 2025, according to an October 2024 report Resume Template Survey 1,258 full-time U.S. workers. A third of them plan to quit their current job, even if they don’t have another job.
Whatever your career plans are for 2025—whether you’re looking for a new job, hoping to get a promotion, or just want to get better at your current position—there are some steps you can take Now to make progress.
Here are three tips from an organizational psychology professor and author of “Lovely Badass” Alison Flagler On how to prepare for success in 2025.
Determine your goals
First, start identifying what you want to accomplish in the new year or even years from now.
“We want to look to the future and get to where we want to be,” Flagl said, adding that could be “you’ve created a product or you’ve started a mentorship program,” for example. Whatever you wish you could add to your resume or something you would be proud of.
Then you want to work backwards from there and come up with some actionable steps on how to do that. By 2025, Fragale says, these steps will help you make choices when looking at your to-do list. “When all else seems impossible, what is the one thing that will most propel me to achieve these goals?”
Identify “three to five relationships” to help realize them
Once you figure out what you want to achieve, identify “three to five relationships that can help you get there,” Flagl says. These can be people who have built similar products or people who have been in the position you want to reach, whoever you think can help you progress.
Then “start thinking about how you can add value to their lives in 2025,” she said. Can you help them complete the project they are working on? Can you make a helpful introduction? Can you share some new research relevant to their work? Helping them first can build your relationship into something more substantial and rewarding.
Try to contact them twice a year to maintain these relationships. That way, when they are finally able to help you, you’ll have made that connection and asked naturally.
“Be comfortable talking about your wins”
Finally, “be comfortable talking about your wins,” Flagel says.
This might mean sending an email telling your boss about some of your accomplishments this week or your team’s accomplishments. This might mean coming up with a good way to answer the question, “How is work?” Highlight one or two things in your personal life that you do well.
If your success happens “behind closed doors” and “no one knows about it,” you can’t reap the benefits, Flagl said.
Simply by knowing how to showcase her wins, Flagell met “some of the most meaningful people in my career” in places like “airport bars, my kids’ birthday parties.”
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