How to Increase Your Value in the Job Market
When you want to keep increasing your income, there are ways to do it outside of work, but most people aim to increase their salary so that their job earns them the majority of their income. While you might dabble in side hustles and investments, advancing in your career is often a reliable way to increase your net worth too. If you can increase your value in the job market, you can keep seeking new opportunities, push for salary raises, and perhaps even create a reputation that makes it possible for you to start your own business. In this contributing post, there are various ways to keep increasing your value and boosting your earnings.
Look for Opportunities to Learn and Train
Learning new skills is often a great way to increase your value in the job market, especially when you get an official certification at the end. You can seek out your own opportunities to learn new things, but you might also be able to expand your knowledge through your current job. Your employer or manager might offer you free training through providers such as Tri-Merit. You can find out about their complimentary CPE training programs for CPAs at https://www.tri-merit.com/tax-training-and-cpe/. It's even worth asking your employer about training and making a case for why it's worth their while to pay for it.
Get Experience in Different Areas
Having a broader set of skills can be helpful in some circumstances. When you're looking for a new job, you can often find that employers are looking for someone with one primary skillset who also has skills in some other connected areas. Some of these skills could be directly connected to your main job, while others might not be as closely related. For example, being able to speak and understand a second language can be very helpful in some roles.
Focus on an Area of Expertise
Another option is to go in the other direction. Instead of broadening your skillset, you can become an expert in one area. When you're very knowledgeable and experienced in one particular thing, your skills are often in more demand. Even if you're staying with your current employer, expertise in a particular area can help you to argue for a pay raise or a promotion. If you're going to do more work or more involved or technical work, you can argue that you should have more seniority or be paid more.
Expand Your Network
Who you know might not always be as important as what you know, but it does still make a difference when you're looking for work opportunities. Expanding your network can increase your value in the job market because it gives you more exposure and can help you to access the higher paying positions. It's an important way to establish your presence and grow your personal brand too. Networking both online and offline can help you to get the exposure that you need to succeed.
Keep working to increase your value in the job market if you want to build a career that supports your financial goals.