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Career success.  All women want it, but how do you define it?  Executive Producer of the Mentorship Network for Women, Dylan Rodrigues has developed a way to not only define career success, but also a method to track and achieve it as well.

As an executive technical consultant to Fortune 500 and government agencies, Dylan was very familiar with best practices, guidelines and methodologies.  When Dylan started designing the Mentorship Network for Women, an online social community exclusively for women, she discovered that there was no widely accepted method for measuring career success. As this aspect was critical to the design of the Mentorship Network, she set out to define her own. 

Using many different sources for her research, Dylan developed the Mentorship System, a matrix of Career Focus Areas and Mentorship Focus Areas.  The 26 Career Focus Areas cover all industries and professions, while the 10 Mentorship Focus Areas present areas for career improvement such as Compensation and Education.

This unique approach to defining and guiding career success allows women to focus on immediate, short, and long-term goals for different aspects of their career lives.

“I noticed that when I started to make lists of goals I wanted to accomplish in my career, they happened,” Dylan said.  “By applying project management principles to my own career, I was able to mentor myself and further define my mentoring needs. This allowed me to identify the type of help I needed and the women I wanted to mentor me.”

Following are the Mentorship Focus Areas that Dylan has developed. See if you can define your own professional goals for each area.

1. Experience: What are your goals for obtaining the experience you need to further your career?
2. Education : What professional certifications or authorizations do you need to achieve your career success?
3. Compensation: What change in compensation are you seeking next?
4. Recognition: What do you need to do get the recognition you deserve for the work that you are doing?
5. Environment: How do you want to change your working environment?
6. Relationships: What are your plans to become a better team player or corporate representative?
7. Influence: How do you get the type of power you need to feel successful?
8. Leadership: What is your next leadership level to achieve?
9. Image: How are you going to improve your image?
   
10. Personal: Do you have any personal challenges affecting your success?