Improve Your Career By Volunteering For Work
September 30, 2008 – 6:05 amOne of the best career moves I’ve made recently involved volunteering for new work. There were several high profile projects assigned to our group, but we were all overburdened. But who cares if I’m overburdened. I saw an opportunity and I took it. I yelled out during a bunch of cross chatter that I’d take on the new project. The two group managers in my department said they would think about who the new project would go to. I said “That’s fine. I have the bandwidth to take the new project on, and if it’s o.k. with you I’ll reach out the the project leads and will work on the project until you decide to assign it to someone else”. 
Now what manager in the world do you think will:
- take work away from someone who wants it
- take work away from someone who says they have the bandwidth to do it
- take work away from someone only to give it to one of their other employees, thereby making them more overburdened and disgruntled
- take work away from someone who will soon know more about the project than they do.
This was a masterful move (if I do say so myself). The second phase of my plan, which I had in mind even when I requested this work, involved off-loading some of my lower-visibility projects to other team members. I wasn’t in a rush to do this, but as the opportunity arose I took advantage of it. This method allow me to get the projects I wanted, get the visibility and experiences I wanted, all while not dramatically increasing my workload (after dropping one or two less desirable projects).
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