7 Things You Should Do To Build Your Career During The
Summer Slump
According to FastCompany.com
Sherry Romello
The Summer Slump
• When June hits and the weather becomes nice, it gets very easy to fall into a comfort zone and do all the fun summer activities
• Don’t put off small important career building tasks
SUMMER TO-DO #1: REVAMP YOUR ONLINE
BIOS• Update what you use to showcase yourself
• 3 versions of your bio that should all be consistent
• Micro bio (Twitter) which is generally 50 words
• Medium length bio, generally 100 words can be your website or blog
• Deeper dive bio, generally 500 words is more so your LinkedIn
SUMMER TO-DO #2: LIVEN UP YOUR LINKEDIN PAGE
• LinkedIn is a the primary way employers go about acquiring their candidates
• 94% of recruiters are active on LinkedIn (2014, Indeed)
• Set aside time every week to keep up your LinkedIn network
• Update your profile picture
SUMMER TO-DO #3: REQUEST A MID-YEAR
EVALUATION• Many companies may only do a once a year
evaluation (beginning or end of the year)
• Check in with your boss to see how you’ve progressed since winter
• You can review your strengths and weaknesses and jump ahead of the curve and try to fix them before your year end review
SUMMER TO-DO #4: TAKE YOUR NETWORKING
OUTDOORS
• Use the great weather to your networking advantage and network outdoors
• Even if golf isn’t your thing, there are many other opportunities to network with people outdoors
• Examples: baseball games, concerts, yoga classes
SUMMER TO-DO #5: FILL IN FOR VACATIONING CO-
WORKERS
• Do you have the drive to possibly learn a new role?
• If you have colleagues looking to take an extended vacation over the summer, offer to help out or fill in
• Even if no one is vacationing, make it known you want to take on more
SUMMER TO-DO #6: SCHEDULE INFORMATIONAL
INTERVIEWS• If you’re looking to make an industry change,
schedule as many informational interviews as possible
• Pick the brains of people in your network that work outside of your industry
• When conversating with these people, your end goal should be to find out what they do in their industry on a day to day basis
SUMMER TO-DO #7: START A CAREER
JOURNAL• Like a normal journal, begin to jot down thoughts
you have about your career
• Some things worth noting are things that make you tick, how you feel about work in present time, what at work puts you in a great mood
• A journal can help you discover things about yourself you otherwise wouldn’t have discovered