5 Steps to Evaluate Your Career and Job at Year-End

As you come to the end of the year you might be getting some feedback from a manager or a supervisor about your work performance this year. It's great to get useful feedback from your employer and this often offers much to consider and implement in the upcoming year.

However, you should also conduct your own personal evaluation of the past year and how you did in relation to your career goals.

Here are five things to evaluate when assessing your career progress:

1. Major projects completed. What did you work on this year? Did you contribute to the completion of a major project in the past year? How successful was it and what was your role in it? Be sure to celebrate your achievements from this year.

2. New skills developed. Did you learn something new this year, take a class, or develop new skills through the completion of the projects you identified above? How do these new skills and abilities impact your career goals? How can these new skills move your career in the direction you envision?

3. New contacts and collaborators. Take some time to identify new contacts, collaborators, and friends you made over the past year. You might want to take a few minutes to reconnect with them before year-end. Think about some ways you can add some value to their life and career and seek a way to help them attain their goals. You can also spend some time identifying how these relationships might contribute to your career goals.

4. Areas for improvement. Be sure to consider the things that did not go well in the past year. Make an honest assessment of your role in the failure and identify ways you might have handled the situation/project/task differently.

5. How satisfied were you with your work? Take some time to consider what you liked and didn't like about your job and career path. Are there some things you can change to increase your level of enjoyment?

Finally, after you've completed your evaluation, update your resume and LinkedIn profile so you'll be ready for any new opportunities at the start of the new year.