1. Improve Your Qualifications

When you need to know how to boost your career prospects, qualifications are often mentioned. Having the right qualifications is essential for many jobs, but there are also courses that will help your prospects in general. If you have a particular career in mind, make sure you select a course that is recognised in that field. If you don't, choose a course that is more broad and applicable to many careers.

2. Make Yourself Indispensable

If you're already in a job but want to advance in your company, you need to show your bosses that they need you, and that you have even more to offer than your present job allows. You have to come across as someone that they need in the company. Make yourself indispensable; bring something to the company that nobody else has.

3. Network

Networking is an essential part of boosting your career prospects. It's said that many jobs are never actually advertised, but instead are filled internally or by word of mouth. Chat to everyone you can; they might be able to introduce you to someone who has a great job vacancy. Tell people what you're looking for and what kind of career you envisage.

4. Room for Improvement

Can you think of a way that your company could make savings? Or do you have ideas that would bring them extra business? Companies exist to make money, so if you come up with ideas that will create business for them then you'll get people's attention. Businesses also need to evolve and expand, so look for ways in which they could do so.

5. Keep Searching

If you're stuck in a job you aren't happy in, or worse still have no job at all, it's easy to grow disheartened. You think that you'll never have a job you enjoy, or that you're doomed to open rejection letter after rejection letter. Well, that job won't fall into your lap, so keep searching. You need to get out there and find it. Send applications until something works out.

6. Find Your Strengths

If your career seems to be in the doldrums, then it's up to you to improve your prospects. The problem may be that you're not doing what you're really good at. Work out what your strengths are, which will help you to identify the kind of careers that you will thrive in. You can also then point out to employers what you have to offer.

7. Have a Plan

Finally, have a plan for your future and where you would like your career to go. Good careers rarely happen by accident, so you need to help guide it. Having a clear idea of where you want to be in ten years time will impress prospective bosses, as it will show that you are a dynamic individual who wants to improve themselves.

A perfect, well-paid job won't just fall into your lap, so get out there and make yourself known. You can take lots of steps to improve your prospects and build an enjoyable career. What would your ideal career be, and what are you doing to achieve it?