Career Momentum is an asset that most professionals ignore, are not aware of, or do not know how to manage. Most do not know that it is a highly fungible commodity—currency—when you are making a job change to get the role, salary, and the title you wish in your next job. They also fail to see the impact of their career momentum on how it can influence their perception when they land their next job and their immediate career growth. Career Momentum can be defined as impetus one gains by how your career is making an impact in what you do; it can also be viewed as strength or continuity derived from an initial effort in a strategic way. Whenever clients come to me seeking to change jobs I first assess their career momentum. How do I do that? I look at the most recent assignments they have had and how they can translate them into bullets that will be on the top of page-one of their résumé. Of course, fashioning a bullet in a right way is critical to its presentation, but once you have the basic raw material to shape a compelling story around your accomplishments it is much easier to frame that presentation to show your career momentum. When we decide that their career momentum is low or even negative—due to inevitable career setbacks—the first order of business in our engagement is to identify avenues to quickly build that lost momentum. Unless the client is in imminent danger of losing their job or is facing a lay-off our focus shifts from job search strategies to building career momentum and to generate some “escape velocity.” Those that are unfamiliar with this phrase, it comes from any object rocketed into space that must leave the earth’s gravitational pull to escape into space and to go on its own, from then on. Without good momentum you cannot generate enough escape velocity to go on your own, based on that initial effort we alluded to in the definition of this phrase. So, what are some of the quick ways to regain your career momentum and parlay that into the right “escape velocity”? Here are some hacks that work for most clients: Don’t just do your job: Most people do what is assigned to them by their boss. What is assigned to them and doing well in delivering success is mere table stakes for momentum building. If you find a clever way to taking on that challenge and delivering above and beyond (filing for patent or scaling-up that solution for implementing it across the company, as examples) then you have something to write about as a compelling bullet on that assignment. If are unable to find something singularly worthy to contribute when you do your assigned task then look around and see what can be done to improve that is important to your workgroup and to you boss. Make a suggestion and show the benefit in clear business or political terms so that your boss can get excited about supporting your doing this task. Either way you now have a résumé bullet that shows initiative and imagination. Preordain that bullet: Most people wait to write their résumé when time comes for them to look for a job. If, instead, you write a bullet in a story-telling format (3-4 lines, not just one line as most do) that captures the result of your task you just took on then you have a roadmap of what the outcome of that task is going to be ahead of time. In most cases if you envision a certain positive outcome ahead of time you are more likely to produce it than just maunder through that task and deliver what comes out in the end. Become visible: Most employees stick to the work that restricts them to their own workgroup and team. Spread your wings and see what adjacent workgroups are doing and see if you can “volunteer” your time to help their projects. Sometimes, if that helps your own group your manager may allow you to do this time-sharing to bring that benefit of new learning into your own group. Once again, envision the résumé bullet that you’ll be able to have as a result of this expanded role that you have now assumed. This shows initiative, eagerness to learn new skills, and risk-taking; all good ingredients to build career momentum. Show leadership: In any workgroup there are challenges. Projects get stuck or mired in political shenanigans. In such cases most team members—even team leaders—wait for things to sort themselves out. If you see this in your own workgroup and your project is mired in delays because of such skullduggery, take on the challenge and show some leadership. Approach your boss and tell them how you can navigate through this obstacle and extricate the project to deliver on time. If you are successful you have one heck of strong story and bullet to write on your résumé that will help you regain your momentum. Become a change agent: Most workgroups are in need of change. The change can be stemming from creating new work standards (it is your boss’ job) to providing new tools to make the workgroup more effective by stamping out drudgery and giving more creative time to team members. In software workgroups test automation is one such avenue. By providing automation tools you can free-up team members’ time by almost eliminating routine work—drudgery—and using that time to create productive outcomes. Such a success is worth touting about in your résumé as a bullet that shows your initiative. These are just five momentum hacks that can shift the message of your otherwise banausic résumé and showcase your leadership. Once you have this algorithm down and the right material on your résumé to showcase your momentum you will have much higher level of confidence when you go out for interviews. It is this confidence that will change how you come across to your new hiring manager and will allow you to land the job you want on terms that may surprise you. Good luck!