Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - DAY 1/7 - KNOW YOUR GOAL | Career Growth Challenge

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

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Hello, welcome to day one of the 7-day Career Growth Challenge with me, Mei Ping, where I help you to level up your career and grow your salary. So before we dive into the nitty-gritty details step by step, which we will, I want to start off with a very, very important question that I think many people miss out on. And that is, what is your career goal? What is your career goal? Specifically, what do you want? So is it going to be a job promotion? Is it going to be a salary increment? And is it going to be career progression?

Is it going to be you want to get on a new project? Or is it you want to change industry? You want to do something else? Like be very specific around what this career goal is. Because the mistake that many people make is that they talk about career growth. They talk about level up. They just want to make more money. I'm like, all that is good. But it's kind of saying like, Mei Ping, I want to reach the peak of Mount Everest to wave my country's flag.

I'm like, okay, awesome. I love your career goal. I like that you have a challenge for yourself, but if you cannot identify that, then what's going to happen is that you will not be able to kind of like reverse engineer and actually go through and identify the exact step by step that you need to make that career goal happen, right? To make that career growth, that career level up, that salary growth that you want. So I'll give you an example. If you identify and say that, you know what, I want a job promotion this year

because now the because is really important because if you also can't say why you want the thing, then it's definitely not going to happen. It's kind of like telling me, Mei Ping, it's kind of nice to have a promotion, you know. If I get it, you know, it would be nice. I'm like, I'm telling you right now, it's not going to happen. So be very specific. So if you say that like, I really want a job promotion this year

because I feel like I have outgrown my current career level, I've outgrown my roles and responsibilities and I feel like I have more potential, I feel like I can do more beyond what I'm doing right now and I'm ready for the next career level and that is why I want to go for a job promotion this year. Now this is good because the desire, the goal is very clear for you and therefore you know that there is a reason why you're going for the next step. It's not because you're bored, it's not because you know, whatever other reasons that you cannot identify but the reason is very clear to you as to okay, I want this next step because it's important to me and this is something that I feel like can continue to add value so that I can increase my value.

Therefore, I can continue to level up the career ladder and continue to make more money. Right? Be this specific. Be this specific. Because if you are this specific, now we are ready to reverse engineer to come up with the steps. Now, if you say that, okay, I want a job promotion, then we can then go back and say that, okay, in order to get a job promotion, that means that your boss needs to know that you're doing a good job, right? Your boss needs to know that Mayping is the one. Mayping is the one who is ready for the next level.

And when it comes to job promotions, right, Mayping is going to be the next person I'm going to promote. So therefore you'd be very clear to you that like, okay, getting visibility for your boss and I mean, to your boss and to other stakeholders is going to be really critical. And therefore, you will then be more motivated to want to step up, want to speak up, want to network. And you also want to make sure that your work is actually really good so that you're only getting positive feedback as you continue to get visible.

So then you'll be motivated to start improving your core corporate skills to make sure that you're ready for the next level, to make sure that your boss is you ready for that promotion. So can you see the step-by-step that I have just pointed out just because we know what the goal is, right? That's why it's so important to have a very, very clear career goal. Now I'll go through the next example. And maybe you say that,

maybe I think my career goal right now is that I want to go and get a new job and get paid more. Now that's good, right? Getting new opportunities, job searching, that's really important. But again, it's now to the question of why is getting that new opportunity? Why is moving to a new company?

Why is getting a new job really, really important to you. Now you may say that like, you know what, this current company is unable to pay me more, like this current company is unable to give me more exposure. I've already spoken to my boss and nothing is happening. Now I'm going to be proactive and take charge of my own career and therefore I think the next company or maybe a bigger company, right, will be able to give me that additional experience, will be able to allow me to upskill, to gain more exposure, to really learn how to work with more people or to maybe deepen my expertise. And therefore I continue to build my value, increase my value so that I can

increase my salary for a better life. Now, again, can you see how specific I am in terms of identifying what is that goal and why that career growth, why that salary growth is so important to you? Because once you can identify that, you know what, this new opportunity, this new job is so important to me because it allows me to continue to build my value and go to a place where I am paid what I'm worth and I can continue to build my value so I continue to increase my salary and continue to get paid what I'm worth. Now this gives you the inner motivation of like okay now that the goal is clear then again we reverse engineer and say okay what do I need to do to get there? What do I need to do to get that?

Now again if you want to get a new job with a high salary, for sure, your value positioning and the way that you're selling your value is going to be very important. Then you're going to go back and look at like, okay, during the interview process, do I clearly come across as someone that is ready for the next level, who's ready to take on the new responsibility can be seen at that senior level that I'm applying for, right? Then that gives you an idea of like, okay, these are the interview skills that I need to improve on, whether it's clarity in your answers,

whether it's making sure your interview answers are more structured, or whether it's really trying to understand what hiring managers are looking for so that you can be even more specific in selling yourself, right? And then it goes back into the process as well. It may also go down to the path of the job that you're applying for,

the way that you're writing your resume, to make sure that you're only targeting the roles at the next level, because you know that you're ready, because you know that that is the kind of opportunities that you want. And those are also the kind of roles that can pay you. And even if you go back even further, right, we go back even one step before, which is if you know you're going to apply for a job that is even more high level, then it's time

to look into, okay, am I really ready? Or are there any specific skills, are there specific things that I feel I need to work on, right? Some core corporate skills, maybe some people problems that you let it, you know, annoy you bits and pieces. So all these things probably should not continue to happen, right, at the next career level. So you want to continue to upskill. Then that allows you, that gives you the motivation to want to upskill because you know it's important

when you start applying for that next level job to get a higher salary, all these things will then come into play. So remember what I said in yesterday's prep training, which is everything in the corporate world is connected. So you really want to see the connection and I'm helping you see the connection today that yes, wanting that career goal is really important, but the path of getting there is even more important. The path of getting there and knowing exactly the step by step in sequence in the right

order so that you can maximize your chances of getting that job promotion or getting that next job that can pay you the salary that you want and even the job promotion is also a salary increment as well. So really really take note of this. And I'm gonna end today's training with a very, very specific exercise that I want you to note down. List it down for yourself, because it's gonna be really important, as I said, to know what the goals are.

Now I want you to write down very clearly, what is the career goal that you want to achieve this year and why, right? I have already given you an example earlier, if it's like, okay, job promotion, okay, let's write down in two bullets, why this is so important to me? Why do I want to make this happen this year?

Right? So first question is, what is the career goal that you want to achieve this year and why? Now, the second question, I also want you to write down two things that you think that you're doing well that is progressing you towards this goal. The two things that you think that you're doing well that is progressing you towards this goal. The two things that you are already doing and you believe that this is really helping me to hit that career goal that I want.

So if it's a job promotion, it could be something like, okay, I've started to, um, I started to catch up with my boss a lot more. I started sending more emails to my boss. Okay. All these are good. Or I'm starting to make a better, you know, have a better network at the workplace, right? All these are good things.

And maybe if your goal is job search, it has to be, you know, I have practiced my interview skills, right? I've really gained some insights on what hiring managers are looking for. So I'm updating my resume to make sure that my value is very clear. Like be this specific, right?

Write down the things that you are already doing that is getting you closer to that goal. Now the third question is, I want you to then write down two things that you think you're not doing that well, right? You're not kind of like going down the right path that is actually stopping you from getting closer to that career goal that you want. So I'll give an example. Maybe you say you want a job promotion, but the two things

that you're not doing well is that you don't like to talk to anyone at your workplace. You prefer working on your own and you prefer to like just not talk to anyone at work. Right. Now this could be a problem because this actually will stop you from gaining that visibility, which will then, you will then not increase your chances for a job promotion. But the other problem could be the case of like, I don't really know what to say to my boss. Now that is also another problem, right?

Because how can you get visible and how can you impress your boss and sell your value if you don't know what to say? Now these are probably two things that will stop you. Then another example back to the job search is that the two things that may be stopping you is maybe you don't really know why you're not passing interviews. You felt that the interviews went fine but you don't really know what has happened during the interview. Maybe you couldn't quite

analyze what you did wrong. Now this is actually lack of like critical analysis which may stop you from progressing in the next interview or maybe you feel like you're not getting the job offers for the salary that you want, right? You're applying, you're looking for like 10K, but somehow all the job offers are coming back for only 5K. Now that is a specific problem that we really want to identify. Say, hey, there must be some issue around my value positioning

that hiring managers are not seeing it. So those could be two things that we just want to identify that we're not doing that great and these are things that we would want to improve on. So as a recap, the three questions I really want you to write down. So question number one is what is the career goal that you want to achieve this year and why? Question number two, what are two things that you are currently doing that's getting you closer to that career goal that you said you wanted. Then question number three, what are two things that you feel that you could do better? That's actually created a bit of a problem

that's stopping you from getting closer to that career goal that you want. So make sure that you write all these things down and I'll see you in tomorrow's training.