Whether you struggling to write your resume or attempting to answer questions like “Where do you expect to be in three years from now career-wise?” at a job interview, a well written career plan is a helpful tool in addressing these ‘challenges’.

Writing your career plan forces you to think tactically and strategically. It also helps you to identify your strengths and weaknesses besides your natural talents. Writing a career plan also provides an opportunity to examine your personal attributes critically. Career planning provides a chance to explore episodes and experiences in your life that impacted your attitudes, beliefs and may even have been turning points in your career.

A well thought through and effectively written career plan is an exercise no one can afford to miss in the 21st century working world. With the disappearance of job security, an annual review of your career plan can provide the much needed impetus to propel you forward and even upward in your career. In writing the career plan you will assess the past year’s events in your career. If it has been a ‘monotonous’ past year with no new or exciting opportunities, you will inevitably think of something to do to break the monotony. If you have made career gains, you will think of ways to consolidate the gain.

After a thorough career planning exercise, some individuals take bold steps to pursue a degree programme or to make a planned career transition in stages. Others may decide to make some lifestyle changes besides a career shift to enable them to ‘accommodate’ matrimony or starting a family. Career planning is not simply about work. Career planning concerns your personal and family issues too.

Good Career Plans

A good career plan will incorporate three key components. They are an assessment of current skills, values, interests and experience; your career vision and a career road map on how you will reach your career goals. By having these well documented after careful reflection and deliberation, you will have a clear blueprint of your career progression map for the next few years.

Know Who Are

Knowing where you are now in your career is very important. Start by documenting your skills and the competency level of each of these skills. Better still if you can support the skills with specific examples and actual experiences. Examine your interests and values. In today’s work world, intelligence is not limited to just pure logical, language and mathematical intelligences.

Knowing what appeals to you in your working and personal life is equally important. You are then likely to choose a career path leading to a job you enjoy and cherish going to it every day. To quote Confucius, “Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

Career Tests

Richard Bolles, author of the highly successful book, “What Color Is Your Parachute” states, “the key to a happy and fulfilling future is knowing yourself. This self-knowledge is the most important component of finding the right career.” He goes on to add, “Many people take career tests with the hope that someone can definitely tell them who they are and what they should do. No test can do that. I recommend that people use the results of their career interest tests to stimulate their own ideas about possible occupations.”

In summary knowing yourself well is important for career success. Undertaking a comprehensive career planning exercise is a voyage in uncharted territory and a journey in self-discovery of your potential.

Plotting the Career Road Map

For a successful career which offers satisfaction and happiness, it is important to plot your moves in small steps. To quote a Chinese proverb, life is like a game of chess, changing with each move. With small steps, you can make minor adjustments without losing sight of your career goal. To quote a German proverb, “You can’t direct the wind, but you can adjust the sails.” Therefore, in plotting your career road map, you must take cognizance of your strengths and natural talents. These will help in overcoming unexpected setbacks and challenges.

A career planning exercise will you bring face-to-face with the reality of who you are, help you to identify your aspirations which are grounded in reality and the likely job or careers that will have a good fit with you. A career planning exercise will also help to identify your developmental needs. As we move into the second decade of the 21st century, will you be ready for new changes in the workplace? Career planning is about planning to make the right moves and the right investment for your employability!

Jan 07 2010, AsiaOne

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