Career Builder > Staying Happy and Successful Throughout Your Career

Once you've landed that dream job, career builder is all about staying happy at work and knowing how to make the best of your success.

If you haven't found your dream job yet, start with the career finderfor help with identifying your perfect job. Then move on to the job search center for complete instructions on how to find a job.  If you've followed those methods and landed that dream job, congratulations and well done!

Now the real work begins.

There are many factors to being and staying happy at work. It's not enough to just love what you do. The work environment, the hours, your boss, your coworkers, your salary, the company culture; these are factors that contribute to your overall experience at work.

The career builder pages take a look at all these aspects of your job, and offer help to make the best of the experience and keep you moving forward.

The job, the boss, the company, and the culture.

Let's start from the very beginning. If you've just started, or you're about to start a new job, you'll find that there's a lot to adapt to in the early days. Career builder offers this insightful overview of what to expect during your first few weeks in your new job.

You should also be prepared to adapt to your new boss, and his established way of doing things. Managers typically fall into one thesemanagement styles.

Your manager is not the only person you'll be in regular contact with. There's probably an existing staff of employees that you will be in frequent direct collaboration with. It can be difficult when you are the new person stepping into an environment where everybody already knows one another, and their work routine is already in place. Take a look at thetypical workplace gang and get an idea of what to expect.

Advancement and continued success.

Once you're rolling along nicely in your new job, it's never too soon to start looking at possible career advancement opportunities within your company. The timing will be very important, and you should successfully pass your probation period and have one good performance review in your current role before approaching your boss for a promotion. In the early months, though, it doesn't hurt to be alert and aware. Get familiar with the company's established structure. Learn how management identifies a need for additional staff. Your career networking skills will be invaluable here. In the career networking section, you learned how career networking can lead to the creation of a new job in a company - a job the employer may not have even realized he needed to create, because networking -the right way - results in creating or uncovering of opportunities that did not previously exist.

Opportunities for advancement in your company may be plentiful, but that's only beneficial to you if you can demonstrate that you are qualified for them. You may wish to consider upgrading our skills to create more career builder opportunities for yourself.

Depending on what you negotiated in your employment agreement, you will eventually be up for a raise. There is one very frustrating reality you should be aware of right away: Bosses don't usually offer raises automatically. Even if your contract called for a salary increase after 6 months, you won't just start receiving a higher pay out of the blue - you'll have to ask for it. And there's no guarantee you will get, so it helps to know in advance exactly how to ask for a raise. Increase your chances of a favorable response by being completely prepared.

Keeping it real.

Once you're coasting along nicely in your new gig, it's easy to become complacent. Don't ever forget how hard it was to land this job in the first place. Even if you're truly happy, it's a good idea to always stay prepared. Keep your career builder and job search kit close by and up-to-date. Having a plan for your career advancement will make promotions more attainable to you when they come up.

One final reality that I want to discuss is that no matter how prepared you were, or how well the process of getting the job went, there is always the possibility that things just won't work out. Learn how to recognize red flags in your new job situation, and best to deal with the possibility that this may not have been your true dream job after all.

Good luck in your new job, and remember to visit the career builder site frequently, for more tips on staying happy and advancing at work!