By Marette Hahn
GCU Career Services
How many times have you taken advantage of your organization’s professional development opportunities? Or passed over those emails and deleted them in order to move on to more pressing ones? Or maybe said “Someday, when I have time …” Stop! Carve out some time to contribute to your own career development.
You’re busy. You’re overworked. You have no time to think about dinner tonight much less taking an hour or two of your workday for a professional development opportunity. Or maybe you’d even have to participate in training outside of work hours. Who has time for that?
What is important to remember, however, is that this is a marathon – your career is over a long time span, and your overall performance depends on all the little things you do along the way. A marathoner couldn’t run a long-distance race without putting in the work, and the same is true for your career.
When professional development opportunities are offered through your organization, those are great occasions to not only develop yourself, but also network with other people across the organization, build allies in other departments, and learn new skills. These training opportunities set a great foundation (along with your own personal professional development work), to set yourself up and be ready for a promotion when the opportunity arises. After all, luck is just preparation meeting opportunity – you have to be ready! Now is the time to invest in your career!
Remember, GCU Career Services is here for you! Stop by our office in Saguaro Hall or call 602-639-6606 to connect. Or you can visit www.gcu.edu/careerservices to utilize any of our online tools to identify your career path, build your resume, research career options or apply to current job postings!
