The Dream Employee
At every interview, the employer hopes that her dream candidate is going to walk through that door, and she can be done with this interviewing process! But is there such a dream employee? Can we define some characteristics of this person? Yes, we can, and they are applicable across all industries:

The employee must:

• Have a good attitude towards working and following instructions
• Be responsible about the work handed to him, and execute and deliver on it on time
• Understand the big picture and come forth with new ideas to improve the business

Simple enough, but not followed often enough! You will find many who may be able to execute on a given task, but who do not maintain a good attitude towards additional work. And then others who do not want to understand the big picture or come forth with new ideas to improve the business.

If you are able to incorporate the above three points into your work life, you are already head and shoulders above the rest of the employees in your firm and are ready for the next step in your career development.

The Value Chain
Every business covers line functions such as:

• Product or Service Department
• Marketing & Sales Department
• Customer Support Department

And a few support functions such:

• Accounting Department &
• Legal Department

There may be more depending on the particular industry and size of company, and you will often find yourself in one of these areas of the business.

Let us assume you are in the marketing department. The value chain within the department would look something like this:

• Marketing Strategy for the company
• Marketing Strategy for a particular product or service
• Marketing tactics for a particular product (tools to use, when to advertise, medium of advertising etc.)
• Implementation of the marketing tactics (advertisement creation, booking advertising slots and so forth)
• Creating the actual advertisement

The chain above clearly shows how the responsibility of the task increases from bottom to top in the chain. Most employees will be working at the lower rungs of the chain, as the maximum physical effort is required at that level. However, the decisions that most influence the future of the company occur higher up the value chain. Hence those positions command a suitably higher salary.

Moving up the chain
Since you are already a responsible employee, your next step is to take a good look at the value chain and determine the responsibilities of that role. You will discover that you need to have a good understanding of not only your role, but also several related roles in your general area. For example, to deliver an advertisement on time, you should be able to:

• Work out the details of the advertisement
• Determine the needs of the project in terms of people and resources
• Schedule everyone's time
• Ensure execution
• Verify results
• Deliver

As you spend more time thinking at a level higher in the value chain, your worth within the firm will increase - and soon you will find yourself as a prime candidate for the next rung in your career development path, taking on a new project at that higher level in the value chain ("A rising star"). 10%+ raises and promotions will follow in its wake -  another example of putting effort in the right direction leading to success automagically.

See our E-book on "Technical Leadership at Work" for a more thorough reading on rising through the ranks.