Horizontal career growth: how to become an expert in your field

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

There are two types of career development: vertical and horizontal. Many people choose to grow vertically and get a high position without thinking that sometimes it is better to grow horizontally within the profession. This article will show you how to get started to become an expert.

In one of the previous articles, we talked about how to climb the career ladder, that is, about vertical career growth. This path usually means getting a higher position than before. But does everyone need it? Many people like what they are doing in their position at the moment, and they want to develop in this area without additional managerial burden.

This career path is horizontal, that is, growth is not upward, but deep into the professional sphere, the acquisition and accumulation of such knowledge and skills, thanks to which the employee becomes an expert in his field. And often the path of an expert turns out to be better than vertical growth, since there is an acute shortage of high-level specialists in the labor market, they are worth their weight in gold.

Horizontal growth in the professional field is considered much more difficult than vertical growth, since many things have to be abandoned: leadership ambitions, a certain social component, a quiet home pastime, large monetary rewards in the form of bonuses and bonuses in favor of professional growth. Rather, it is the path of a loner.

What do you need to do to become an expert in your field? Here are some simple tips.

1. Study the specialty in depth

It is necessary to accumulate knowledge in one field of activity for a long time. At the same time, they should not be superficial, but deep, expert, going beyond the usual knowledge of the topic under study. You will have to read a lot of professional literature and find information that is hidden from prying eyes.

2. Take work home

At the initial stages, it is better to take work home and on vacation: drawings, projects, technical part (tools, equipment, models). You must immerse yourself in your work with your head. Often times, you have to sacrifice your personal life and free time. Everyone knows that it is difficult to simultaneously develop all aspects of your life, and if you also want to become an expert in some area, you will have to deny yourself a lot, since you will have to devote the lion's share of your time to your work.

3. Attend seminars on technical issues in your specialty

For you, self-development trainings are not the main thing, and a meeting of experts on your topic and discussion of pressing issues is what you need. It is necessary to look for specialized trainings, communicate with professionals, enter into discussions with them, develop new theories and find joint answers to questions. If a recognized unique specialist announces a recruitment for his course or organizes a seminar, then you need to get to it. You must learn everything new in your specialty, communicate with like-minded people, understand the subtleties and specifics of your business.

4. Live work for a certain period of your life

Sounds dangerous, but it is. For a certain period of your life, you must fully devote to your work: weekdays, often weekends, business trips, overtime, rush jobs. All for the sake of one thing - to become an expert in this field. You should be in a state of flux at work, think about the questions and problems that have arisen in the evenings, try new techniques. Specialist forums will replace your entertainment portals.

Remember the rule: to become an expert in any field, you need to devote 10,000 hours of pure time to this topic. And that's about three hours a day for 10 years, six hours a day for five years, or nine hours a day for three years.

5. Focus on the essentials

We decided to become the best in some area - go for it no matter what. If you are offered a big cash bonus at another job for completing the same tasks or in your old place you are entrusted with a new mega-project, the likes of which you have never implemented before, then feel free to choose the second one. The experience gained will give you much more in the future than a one-time pursuit of money.

You need to understand: to become a real professional, you need to focus not on money, but on your business.

An expert goes beyond the usual knowledge of the topic, he knows the answer to almost any question in his specialty. And if he does not know, he will spend all his free time to find him, and will also take full responsibility for himself, since his reputation is at stake.

An expert never needs to be told how and what to do, he does not need to be controlled, he himself allocates his time and energy. Better to throw difficult tasks at him, especially something unique that excites his mind. He may not pay much attention to his character, his flaws or his social component. He lives in a different world - a world of interesting facts and subtleties, specific knowledge, unique professional skills that many cannot understand.