We all need to work during our life; there’s no way around it, and work brings a certain amount of dignity, self-respect, and self-esteem into your life. And we’ve all gotta start somewhere, with many people taking entry-level roles after college and then they work their way up the ranks, building their career throughout their lives.
Part of building your career includes creating an actionable career development plan. This article will share the heart of engagement at work and how you can make a solid plan to build your dream career, so read on to learn more.
Upskilling to Grow
You can upskill by completing additional online courses, short programs and qualifications on the side as well as your primary qualification. LinkedIn offers these, and there are plenty of free online modules to help you learn in your own time. Going a step further, there are many online universities you could enroll in to advance your existing qualifications, such as Felician University’s MSN AGPCNP program or other tertiary qualifications.
By upskilling, you can list the short courses and other qualifications on your CV, demonstrating to employers that you have a learning mindset. You’ll also gain the valuable knowledge and experience that these courses offer, giving you an edge in the workplace and showing that you’ll go the extra mile to learn and develop.
Create Your Career Action Plan
You might want to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and write up your career action plan, which should be a list of your professional goals and the steps you can take to achieve them. For instance, the first step for most people will be to obtain a qualification. This means that you can begin writing your career action plan while you study at college.
An example of a section of the plan may be as follows:
Goal: Gain employment once I graduate from college. Steps: polish my CV, draft cover letters, buy interview clothing, get a haircut and research potential companies to apply for.
As you can see, the plan will list goals and the steps required to achieve them. You can then create your plan in more detail. Some other possible goals may include:
- Gain a postgraduate qualification
- Increase salary/get promoted
- Build a professional network
- Learn new workplace skills
- Build a personal brand
- Become a mentor
- Become an expert in your field
Each of these goals should be followed by practical, achievable steps to fulfill them. Let’s discuss how to craft a goal now.
SMART Goals
When designing a career goal, you should keep the SMART acronym in mind. This stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Bound. Let’s take one of the above career goals and break it down using this system. For instance, let’s pick the “build a professional network” goal. You might want to write down that you will gain twenty connections – this is specific. Next, you can measure this because you will either have those connections or you won’t. For a young graduate, twenty connections are probably realistic, as these can be gained while you study and when you enter the workforce. Next, you will set a time limit, which for this goal a period of six months to a year is probably practical and realistic. Apply this methodology to all the goals on your career plan. If you can’t match the SMART system to a goal, it probably requires some rethinking and pivoting in order to make it a SMART goal.
Values Match
For some people, particularly younger workers, values are incredibly important in the professional sphere. This means your personal code of values, ethics or morals – we can use these terms interchangeably. You might want to write down a list of your personal values, which might include terms like integrity, accountability, honesty, charity, success, passion or creativity. Then, when building your career plan, you can see if you can match those values with your career trajectory. For instance, you might want to apply only to companies that are a values match. This might mean working in the non-profit or healthcare space if you have values like charity, altruism and compassion. If you’re more driven by success, financial stability and growth, the private sector might be more appealing and better values match for your career action plan.
Longer Term Goals
In addition to immediate and mid-term career goals, your actionable career development plan should also include some longer-term planning, as it never hurts to plan years in advance, especially if you want to work your way up the company ranks. For instance, you might set a goal to net a leadership or management role after five or ten years in more junior positions or obtain a PhD in your chosen field, which positions you as an expert and comes with the status and weight of that qualification. Other people still may not aspire to management or postgraduate qualifications and instead might set goals like excellent work-life balance, technical proficiency in their field or something similar.
Align With Your Personal Development
In addition to professional development goals, you might also consider how an actionable career development plan aligns with your personal development goals outside of work. We spend so much time at work that it becomes an integral part of our lives, so it makes sense to have this alignment. You might list happiness, contentment, fulfillment and joy here, and consider how your work life can bring about these goals.
A Career Development Summary
In this helpful article, you’ve learned how to create an actionable career development plan, such as setting SMART goals and aligning your values with your employer. Now, all that is left to do is strive to complete it!
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