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Vienna, Austria – Although we are taught to work independently, learning efficient delegation skills could have a great influence on  one’s career.

The over-emphasis on flying solo can also be attributed to our experiences with school and study. Letting someone else work on your exams and dissertations is utterly forbidden; even if ghost-writers are used on projects and dissertations, they are only allowed to correct the language and cannot touch the content.

However, in professional life the rules are different, and many fresh graduates find it hard to adjust. Attempting to do everything independently can be a major career error.

Excessive self-reliance can work out particularly badly for those who seek their fortune outside a company and choose self-employment. The majority of self-employed people work constantly, trying to do everything themselves with little economic success to show for it.

At school, it makes sense to work hard and develop your own content, to learn and to practice your skills. But in professional life, the most successful people manage to take internal or external employees, and then build them up and develop them to help shoulder the burdens. The idea is that although you are capable of doing all the work yourself, you do not need to.

Moreover, we live in an era where in most occupations it is impossible to build up a fortune based on your own work alone. Your salary covers the basics of life, perhaps a fairly nice apartment and the odd vacation. Nowadays, the people who really get rich are those who know how to leverage the skills of others.

To make it clear: it is important to be able to do things by yourself – if you can’t do this, you can’t get a job! But the secret of professional success is to delegate, reserving for yourself only the tasks at which you truly shine.

Conrad Pramböck is the Head of Compensation Consulting at Pedersen & Partners. Based in Vienna, Austria, he is responsible for consulting companies on all aspects of compensation, including providing companies with up-to-date market information on salary ranges and design of bonus systems across all industries and geographies. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Pramböck held several senior positions in international consultancy firms. He started his career with a German Consultancy firm working in management consulting and later in the Compensation Consulting business unit based in Austria. For the following seven years he worked with one of the top Austrian Executive Search firms as the Head of Compensation Consulting. He was responsible for all international compensation consulting activities and developed and maintained an international compensation database in 40 countries.

Pedersen & Partners is a leading international Executive Search firm. We operate 56 wholly owned offices in 52 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia & the Americas. Our values Trust, Relationship and Professionalism apply to our interaction with clients as well as executives. More information about Pedersen & Partners is available at www.pedersenandpartners.com

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