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Cultivating your career is one of the things you can spend a huge part of your adult life doing. Not everyone is super career-focused, but you might still want to try and increase your earnings or just make sure you don’t get bored at work. If you want to climb the career ladder, or simply ensure you can keep your job, it’s important to know what could affect you negatively. Some things could put your career in danger if you’re not careful. If you want to protect your career and ensure you can go after your goals, be aware of the following things.

Bad Behavior on Social Media

As social media has rapidly grown, not everyone has kept up with the importance it can play in your career. While you might see your social media as part of your personal life, employers are often concerned with how you’re using it. They care about how you present yourself publicly, especially if you make it clear who your employer is. It’s important to be careful with what you do and say on social media. Try to keep your activity as private as possible and keep in mind that you could make yourself look bad if you’re not careful.

Criminal Record

Getting in trouble with the law can be an issue for your career. Being convicted of some crimes can prevent you from doing some jobs altogether. Others could make employers wary of hiring you. So it’s best to stay on your best behavior if you want to protect your career. However, no one should have their past crimes follow them forever. If mistakes from the past are still following you, reputation management experts could change things for you. They can make positive material online more visible and help to make any less desirable records less visible. You might want to be honest about your past, but it’s not always relevant when you want to grow your career.

Getting a Bad Reputation at Work

Being well-liked at work is something most people want, although the reality is that it’s unlikely that everyone will like you. However, even if you’re not friends with everyone, you don’t want to end up with a bad reputation. If you don’t make an effort to do your job well, you could gain a poor reputation that can even follow you from one job to the next. There’s a lot you have to be careful about at work, from how you associate with colleagues to how hard you work.

Not Having Ambition

Not everyone is extremely ambitious in their career. You might be very happy doing your current job, with no wish to pursue any promotions or move through the ranks. But showing a lack of ambition at work could be damaging for some people’s careers. You don’t necessarily have to want a promotion to show drive. You could demonstrate enthusiasm by getting involved in new projects or learning something new.

Protect your career by avoiding any behavior that could get you into trouble. It’s important to be aware of your image.