Become your Personal Best
Employers can be looking for new ideas and ways of working and appreciate employees who can proactively find opportunities and be creative in the way they work. Sometimes this can even lead to saving time and money within the company!
There are plenty of opportunities on campus to develop these skills, (please see the Loughborough Enterprise Network page to see more information) or having a position of responsibility within a society, getting involved in Enactus, blogging and using social media to market your skills, or even setting up your own business. Using platforms such as Lboro Connect and LinkedIn will help you to connect with and learn from innovative and enterprising professionals.
Building Networks
According to LinkedIn, in 2016 85% of jobs were found through networking. Building a strong network of people who have expert knowledge, contacts and reach are crucial to building a successful career both as an tentrpeneur and employee.
Consider doing a mind map of all the people in your network. Consider your friends, relatives, friends' relatives, university contacts, placement or work experience contacts, next door neighbours and others. Is there anyone that could help you reach your next goal or help your idea turn into a reality?
Taking time to do this exercise and review your networks will help you in progressing in your career.
Resilience
With new ideas comes the possibility of failure and set backs. Resilience is your ability to deal with these failures, set backs and feelings towards them to 'bounce back'. This means planning ahead and making assessments for all potential eventualities and consulting other stakeholders so that you are well informed and know what support is available to help you on your journey.
Sometimes however, despite planning and being informed, an idea may fail. In these situations, resilience also means embracing the experiences and learning from them for next time. Ask yourself:
- What didn’t go well?
- How would you make sure this wouldn’t happen again?
- What did you do right?
This process can be known as ‘failing forward’.
Persuasive communication
Once you have produced an innovative idea, the next step is to communicate this to your audience. This might include other colleagues involved in the project, management and clients. Remember,not everyone will be happy with change, so at times you will need to practise persuasion skills. To build on this skill try to identify, observe and learn from other persuasive communications you come across.
When using persuasive communication, your audience will want to see that you know the process inside and out, including what may have been in place beforehand, so it can be useful to build your case with evidence and facts. Using a SWOT? analysis will help you to take advantage of all the possibilities available to you within your project.
Remember that each audience member will be invested in a different way, so ensure you are pitching your ideas at the right level. There may be situations where it is not possible to change a process and so it is important to identify boundaries and accept when your idea isn’t taken forward.