March 2026 -How to accelerate your career

The number of job applicants has doubled in the last 4 years and in 2026 over half of people globally are looking for their next role. This means unprecedented competition for career opportunities.

If you want to accelerate your career, then you must advance the way you manage your career. There are some essential steps you can take that will make you stand out and speed up your progression. If you don’t change but wait for the market to shift it is like an athlete wanting to run a faster time but not shifting their training in any way.

Network

Building relationships is a vital step in accelerating your career. You won’t get the next opportunity despite others; you will get it because of others. The most successful people have a varied and diverse network. They do not see networking as a transactional task to be done to get a job, they see building professional relationships as vital and something they do continuously. 85% of roles are filled through networking, and with the increasing use of AI recruiters are increasingly seeking out people who are recommended by others so they can find ‘hidden gems’. Your professional relationships have never been more crucial when finding new roles.

Be Visible

Be more involved in high impact work. What would raise your profile in your current role? What more could you do to build your reputation? What could you lead or contribute to? This is not about saying yes to everything, but strategically offering to do more on projects, programmes or tasks that raise your profile and build your reputation Often you will have to seek these out and persist. Think about where you would like to get to and what new skills or achievements might help you to get there. A caution with this: don’t just do more when it only benefits you. Think more broadly and strategically: what would benefit my team or organisation, then the benefit for you follows that.

Develop

Grow your technical, leadership or soft skills:

What skills do you need to develop to take your desired next step? These may be technical, leadership or soft skills. Find opportunities to develop them either through courses or by getting involved in new projects in your current role that stretch you and use those skills. What courses are available at work, and what courses could you do outside of work?

Find a Mentor who is an ambassador

Asking for a mentor at work or finding one outside of work is a really effective way of developing. It is most useful if your mentor is not just a mentor but also an ambassador for you – someone who champions you in the right rooms and helps build your visibility in circles that you do not yet have access to.

Get an executive coach

Executive coaching has been shown to accelerate career progression and leadership skills. Studies show that 89% of individuals report coaching has a positive impact on their career advancement, supported by improvements in confidence, leadership capability and performance.

Hone your application skills:

Use AI to perfect your CV and applications, but make sure your authentic voice is still there. Some recruiters will dismiss applications that seem to be purely Ai generated. Don’t make your text too wordy, unnecessarily complicated or littered with long dashes. Speak like a human not an AI but use AI to check and edit.

Persist

Accelerating your career might not be easy. Nothing worth having ever is. Therefore, you need to persist and build resilience. You may have rejections and setbacks, but these build character and learning. The most successful people I know don’t even see failures as failures they see them as challenges or learning opportunities. This reframe is powerful and energising. Persistence needs energy, so seek energy through your network (who brings you joy?), through your out of work activities (what brings you joy outside of achievement?), and through always leaning into your strengths (how you bring joy).

If you would like support in accelerating your career our team of coaches and trainers are experts in helping. Take the first step and contact us here for a chat to find out more