Moving Up

The Merit Systems Protection Board recently conducted a survey of career federal employees asking them what they believe are the top 10 career accelerators. In its July 2009 Issues of Merit newsletter, MSPB highlighted the results from its 2007 career advancement survey, which indicated that federal employees believe it's both "who you know" and "what you know" that moves you up the federal career ladder.

Supportive supervisors or mentors were rated the top career accelerators, while willingness to take on challenging work assignments and/or having high quality past work experience and specialized or technical training also ranked high. While none of the recommendations are information-technology specific, the broad focus on technical or specialized training, past work experience and challenging work assignments certainly have implications for IT workers interested in moving up the federal career ladder. IT workers can use these strategies to explore how to advance their careers and identify the roles supervisors can play in helping them, MSPB states.