subject: Tips on business/job advancement [print this page] Tips on business/job advancement Tips on business/job advancement
Too many people are content to remain in the positions in which they find themselves. The thought of studying the needs of the next position just above them never seems to enter their minds. It is possible for every man to rise above his position and it makes no difference how humble that position may be, nor under what disadvantages he may be placed. But he must be alert. He must not be afraid of work and of the hardest kind of work. He must study not only to please, but he must go a step beyond. It is important of course, that he should first of all fill the position for which he is engaged.
No man can solve the problem of business before he understands the rudiments of the problem itself. Once the requirements of a position are understood and mastered, then its possibilities should be undertaken. It is foolish, as some young men argue that to go beyond their special position is impossible with their employers. The employer never existed who will prevent the cream of his establishment from rising to the surface. The advance of an employee always means the advance of the employer's interests. An employer would rather pay a young man five thousand dollars a year than five hundred dollars. What is to the young man's interest is much more to the interest of his employer.
A young man makes of a position exactly what he chooses: a millstone around his neck or a stepping stone to larger success. The possibilities lie in every position; seeing and embracing them rest with its occupant. The lowest position can be so filled as to lead up to the next and become a part of it. One position should be only the chrysalis for the development of new strength to master the requirements of another position above it.
The average young man is extremely anxious to get into a business position in which there are what he calls prospects' for advancement. It is usually one of his first questions, What are my prospects here?' He seems to have the notion that the question of his prospects' or advancement is one entirely in the hands of his employer, whereas it rarely occurs to him that it is a matter resting entirely with him. An employer has, of course, the power of promotion, but that is all. He cannot advance a man unless the man first demonstrates that he is worthy of advancement. Every position offers prospects; every business house has in it the possibility of a young man's bettering himself. But it depends upon him, first. If he is of the average come-day go-day sort and does his work in a mechanical or careless fashion, lacking that painstaking thoroughness which is the basis of successful work, his prospects are naught. And they will be no greater with one concern than with another, although he may identify himself with a score during a year.
