Creating a Career Development Plan

1. Introduction: Career Development Planning. In today's modern society, career development is in stark contrast to what it once was. Climbing the so-called career ladder has become much less straightforward these days. With more opportunities and possibilities at every step. Yet, having more choice can make things much more confusing. Simply put, it's no longer career ladder. It's a career mountain range. Throughout this course, I'm going to help you create a career development plan. We'll explore your future goals and that clarity on how you can achieve those. This course is aimed at any person wanting to further their professional career. Whatever the level you might be at. Whether you're just starting out in the working world and wanting to explore new opportunities, or are trying to move forward with your vocation. This course will help give you the confidence and clarity to harness those opportunities. Let's take a brief look back at the career ladder we've just mentioned. Climbing the career ladder is typically a phrase we pick up from school, were commonly taught to start at the bottom and work our way up the ladder to achieve the success we desire. Seems straightforward, right? However, career development simply isn't as straightforward or as easy as climbing one ladder. Unfortunately, today there are many different opportunities available, Thousands of avenues to go down. And it's fairly common these days to have multiple goals that don't always overlap. Gone are the days where you find a profession, stick with it for life. In contrast, the average employee these days, we'll have upwards of 20 different jobs in their lifetime. Those building a career development plan can feel like a very tricky thing indeed. Yet it has never been more crucial to do so. Building your own plan puts you in control of, well, you, it seems silly, but it's very easy to become overwhelmed with career opportunities, especially when your personal life takes precedence and you suddenly feel overloaded and choosing the right route for you. I am certainly no advocate of the live to work mentality. Though in contrast, I'm not also a huge fan of working to live. Rather, I prefer to ensure my work is compatible with my lifestyle, my emotional needs, and my health. And the only way you will find that compatibility is by building your own development plan. One which takes into account your personal goals, not leaving them sidelined until you reach the pinnacle of professional success. 2. How do you know where to start: How do you know where to start? The first starting point to any solid career development plan is to acknowledge your own strengths and weaknesses. When we talk about strengths and weaknesses in this capacity, it's less about your academic achievements or your skill set. It's about what qualities make you who you are, your personality, for example. Are you naturally quite a calm person? Do you enjoy being a people person? Or does the idea of being the center of attention on nerve you? There are no right or wrong answers. These are simply part of what makes you, you, understanding your personality can be a difficult task. Let's be honest. It's hard to accept our own weaknesses, but it's an incredibly important one. By acknowledging your own qualities, what you're great at, and the areas you find difficulty in, you'll be better place to discover a career that you will not only excel at, but you will also enjoy. And there's nothing better than being in a role that you enjoy doing. It helps you to feel valued, remain motivated, and naturally thrive. Consider choosing a role as an A&E doctor despite having difficulty working under pressure, what's the likelihood of you wanting to work overtime in that scenario? How do you think your emotional health would struggle? That's certainly not to say you must never be a doctor, but rather by discovering your strengths and weaknesses. You can understand the right area of medicine as an example, that you would be comfortable working within. The Myers-Briggs personality test is an excellent method to uncover your personality. It's the most widely used personality test in the world and uses a series of different situations for you to evaluate how you would feel or react. In each one. You'll learn what really drives, inspires and worries you. Helping you to understand how to grow and better navigate the world around you, including your career roadmap. The personality test is always a good starting point for those of you who find yourselves completely bewildered in your career aspirations. If you're at the start of your career path, it can sometimes be quite daunting to know which direction you want to head in. Even more so when perhaps your peers are already certain of their future job prospects. The test will not only be a good indicator on your strengths and weaknesses, but also give you some helpful direction as to what sort of roles will be suitable for you based on your qualities. Whilst it certainly shouldn't be taken as a guarantee for career satisfaction. These roles will give you a good starting point to explore other career opportunities in similar roles to just as everything in life, our personalities change as we age. The things you may find difficult navigating now, you might well do with ease and the future. For example, when I had just finished education, I struggled a lot with my confidence, which had an impact on my communication. I would find it hard to talk freely to people, would write scripts before making telephone calls. And I would freeze up if I was asked to give any form of presentation. These days. However, I genuinely enjoy communicating with clients and I can confidently present to a large audience without feeling nervous. So it's worth remembering that aspects of your personality will change, perhaps not so dramatically in some circumstances, but enough to see a shift in what your strengths and weaknesses are. 3. What do you want in a career: What do you want in a career? Now that you have identified some of your core strengths, you are able to start creating a career vision. A career vision, simply put, is a statement of what you would like from a career. Remember, your vision should be about what strengths you want to harness and what's important to you in a role rather than specific job responsibilities. Use these prompts for guidance. Having the opportunity to express myself honestly is very important to me. I am creative and enjoy the flexibility of expressing my creativity beyond the standard nine to five routine. I am very people-centric and enjoy being able to communicate regularly. I like to work independently and do not want to be micromanaged. I prefer to observe and team projects rather than take the lead. I am calm and practical, able to make rational decisions. Putting effectiveness before empathy. Creating these statements will give you a great indication as to what is important to you. And remember, whilst it's great to be open-minded in most things in your life. These are your own personal values. The things that make you happy and you feel will work best for you. As such, it's important to be as critical and specific as you can. Your career vision needs to reflect what you truly want to need in your life and how your career will contribute to those needs. Take a look at this list of work-life values. Take the time to write these down and order them in priority of what you value. Most important to least. Job security, salary, flexibility, authority, personal growth and development. Team work, developing friendships, repetition, freedom, sense of purpose. Additional benefits such as maternity package or sickness pay. And finally, travel. I will work life values will change over time, sometimes quite dramatically. As you get older, perhaps have children. You may find you now value salary and job security higher than your own personal growth. And in contrast, working towards retirement may make you value a sense of purpose over a good salary. Your values will change over time. And it's important to note that not every career will allow you to diversify those values. That's why it's increasingly common for people to seek a change in their career path feeds days to find something which is a better match for their newly aligned values. Try to let your career vision reflect how you feel in the here and now. 4. Finding the right fit: Finding the right fit. Exploring career opportunities before getting a good understanding of your vision can very often become a laborious and challenging project. However, now that you have a good idea of what your visions and values or you can move forward towards finding out what type of career will be the right fit. You may already have some ideas in mind of what roles you think will be suitable for you or have an interest in a certain industry. Whilst this is great and certainly puts you one step forward, it's always worth investing the time to explore other options too. Even if you eventually rule them out. To start exploring different career options, I would recommend building a mind map to help you visualize the opportunities. Starting with the center, your options. You can brand chat to each industry you're interested in. Further branching out into the roles which you feel will seek to you or you have an interest in. For example, in exploring the education industry. You might list roles such as schoolteacher, welfare officer, special needs teacher, assessor, and private tutor. Next, we want to take those roles and list the pros and cons for each. Remember to apply your vision and values to each. Does the role harness what's important to you? Does it suit your priority of work-life values? Be sure to spend some time with this. Explore the roles in detail. Perhaps even speak to people you know, who already work in the industry for their opinions. The more research you can do at this stage, the better place you will be when it comes to plotting your career milestones. In the next section. If you're struggling to find a starting point for this research, take a look at job advertisement websites such as Monster. Indeed, total jobs or LinkedIn. Most recruitment sites will have tools to help you explore different industries and find out about the roles that they offer. 5. Establishing your career milestones: Establishing your career milestones. The next step to building your career development plan is understanding your goals and working out how to achieve them. We call these your career milestones. And they consist of both your short and long-term goals. Your milestones significantly differ from the vision and values which we covered earlier. They explain what you need to achieve in your career. And when you would like to achieve them. Start with your end goal. The role you have in mind. Then make a list of what tasks you need to perform or achievements you require. In order to reach that role, consider the following. What experience do you need for this role? For example, in order to become a sales manager, Most roles would require you to have experience as a sales advisor or a team leader first, with experience in working towards targets advantageous to are there any qualifications you must have? Does this row required to be in a certain geographical area? Remember, at this point this is not specifically for one company. However, certain careers do require you to be in a certain area to find such roles. For example, being a deep-sea diver would certainly be difficult to achieve when living in the Midlands. Are there certain achievements you can gain in your current role to aid future applications? For example, does your current workplace offer a management course? Now that you have a list of your goals, we can start to organize these into a timeline. There's certainly does not need to be data accurate. Rather, it's a rough agenda of the milestones you want to hit. At what point in your career you want to hit them. Don't be afraid of setting goals overlapping. For example, you may want to complete a degree for a qualification alongside interning at a company for the experience. Or in some instances, it's possible for you to seek a role in the industry whilst completing your study to move further up the ranks, I, when studying medicine or Accountancy. Ultimately, you want to draw on the research we discussed in earlier chapters to define these milestones. If you're finding it difficult to identify your career milestones, take a step back and do some further research and what your vision is for a career are the most suitable roles for you. If you're just starting your career path, it is worthwhile developing your milestones for multiple roles which you find appealing and would like to consider. Your milestones need not be for one end result. For example, it may be that you're keen to explore becoming a web developer, but your passions and skills may lend themselves well to other roles too, such as graphic design, animation, et cetera. In doing so, it's possible to find similarities in what achievements or tasks you're required to undertake. This will give you some excellent intelligence later in your career. Should you be looking to take a side step into a similar role in the industry? 6. Management: Career Development equals becoming a manager. It's a very common misconception that career development means promotion. And that career success is defined by becoming the highest ranked employee in the business. For some of us, that may well be the ideal. And it's most certainly not a bad aspiration to have. However, that doesn't suit all of us. And if you've learned one thing in my course thus far, It's that career development is not a one-size-fits-all scenario. As an example, climbing the business career ladder is too often interpreted as starting at the bottom of a company structure, climbing up to the top of the pile. Often in a management role, or even reaching a director point. What's wrong with that interpretation? Well, it assumes that every single one of us will make an excellent manager. That's not quite right. Not everyone has the skills or the desire to become a manager. When we talk about management, quite often being a people manager, I'm leading a team, managing employees and delegating tasks. Seems like the only route. Management in itself comes in many different roles and requires different skills for each. So not every person will be suitable for every management role. Personally, I never had any desire to become a team manager when I was younger and just starting out in my career, I felt management was not for me. Since the only natural progression for my first job as a salesperson was to be calm and team leader. Then further progress onto a sales manager. This avenue meant that I would be solely responsible for leading a team of other salespeople in the right direction, managing their time, conducting staff appraisals, and the general day-to-day tasks of being in charge of a team. It was simply not for me. And in stark contrast to the rollout was enjoying at the time, I was fortunate enough to discover other opportunities and find the right path for me. In the end, I was able to sidestep from my role as a salesperson into other roles which allowed me to progress in the way I wanted to. I progressed into account management, then becoming an account strategist and was able to work alongside business consultants in that role to help hardest my skills in the right direction. These roles were much more focused on managing projects and customers needs. And I enjoyed them much more than I would have if I were to responsible for an entire team or department. It's not uncommon to find works well as a team as well as on their own initiative on resumes. Hoping employers will see the individualist dynamic. Someone who can adapt in any environment. But in truth, we each have our own preferences. I myself prefer to work on my own. I don't thrive in group projects as I'm not a natural born leader. And I find my productivity is much better when I'm left to my own devices. I've digress slightly, but I'm hoping you'll find this insight useful, especially if you're just starting out in the world of work. My point is, not everyone needs to have the same end goal. Not every one of us is destined to become top of the pile. And your career development is yours alone. It doesn't require you to be anything less than your authentic self. So whilst facilities, being the head of a department and managing staff is something that you will easily accelerate for others, including myself, discovering other roles outside of the traditional path to move into will be just as rewarding. 7. Becoming self employed: Becoming self-employed. Self-employment has become incredibly popular in the last few years. And depending on your career goals, it may well be an opportunity that you also wish to explore. It's easy to note some of the pros to being self-employed. You can work for yourself. You can manage your own time. You have job security, and you can choose your own customers. On the other side. There are many aspects of self-employment which can prove more difficult. Building your business in the beginning can be a long, slow process. You need to attract new customers, gain their trust in you as a business, and you'll find you may work longer hours to make ends meet. There are no company perks. What happens to your business if he suddenly cannot work, for example, due to long-term sickness or personal circumstances. Let's face it, running your own business is difficult. However, as we've mentioned, it can be extremely rewarding and may well be a better fit for your work-life balance. Remember, embarking in self-employment doesn't have to be a steadfast decision. For me personally. I set up my own business on the side whilst continuing to work full-time for another company. It allowed me to build my business the way I wanted to, whilst having a little more security and a guaranteed income each month. Before you decide that self-employment is the root for you, I would encourage you to take the time to talk to others who are already self-employed in a similar role, find out how they did it and get the advice from them. Whether it be a side project he continued to grow as I did, or a business venture. You decide to take a leap of faith for. Remember to thoroughly researched the opportunities before investing. Depending on the career path you wish to pursue. It could be that the role you have in mind is almost exclusively a self-employed root. For example, working in theatre or whatever your decision when it comes to self-employment, make sure you deal research. Here are some of my top tips. Find a good accountant. If the idea of managing your company finances and declaring your earnings fills you with dread. Be sure to find an accountant from the start who will do this for you. Take some business management courses, be at night classes, online classes, or a fully-fledged degree. I highly recommend undertaking some business management courses to help you succeed. I have my own courses which will help with business marketing, creating company visions, and attracting your clients to complement this course. Know your worth. When you first start out in self-employment, it can be easy to accept the opportunities that lower rate than you expect just to get your foot through the door. And that's fine to do so. But as you start to grow, It's important to remember how much you value yourself. Underpricing your business from the start can have a negative impact. You may find it difficult to raise your existing customers costs since they agreed a cheaper rate from the start. That could result in new turning down better paid opportunities. And finally, remember you are responsible, you are responsible for other costs when you're self-employed that may previously have been catered for by an employer, such as business insurance, accountant's, office rent. Be sure to factor these N and make certain that you will actually make a profit for your work. Self-employment is not everyone's idea of career happiness. It can be both rewarding and extremely stressful. Do think carefully about the options you have. But one thing I would say is don't rule it out based on the fear alone of not having a steady income. 8. It's ok to be unhappy in your career: It's okay to be unhappy with your career path. The root to a successful career doesn't always run smoothly. It's perfectly normal to be unhappy with your chosen path. Whether it be the industry you chose to work in as a whole, or aspects of the company which don't align with your goals. It's more common than you might think. I've tried to be as open as I can with my own career growth to help those of you who might just be starting out. And as I mentioned earlier in this course, it's not uncommon to feel overwhelmed with no which route to take. It took me many years to find my feet and a roll I felt harnessed my potential. I worked in a few different industries before finding a passion in IT and education. I worked in retail, manufacturing and for a publishing company previously. Whilst I enjoyed some of the aspects of those jobs, I never felt the industries were quite right. I am very customer centric and I enjoy building relationships with customers. It's much easier to do that in an industry you feel passionate about. And for me, that turned out to be working in software in an industry which catered for improving patient care. I've also experienced my fair share of bad management and finding a boss who aligned with my core values and visions. I being able to work flexibly, having the ability to travel, and having something different to deal with every day helped an awful lot in finding career happiness. After all, you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. Oftentimes it's important for us to experience what we don't want. In order to find exactly what we do want. It's impossible to achieve something important without there being some bad effects. That's certainly not to say developing a career development plan is useless or unimportant. Conversely, understanding your own visions and values will aid you in understanding when a job doesn't align with those. It's perfectly fine to be thinking. I want to try something different. Very often I come across people who will tell me they are not happy in their role, but they've already invested too much time or money to warrant starting over. This might be the very reason you're taking this course right now. The key thing to remember is that you should not settle for anything that doesn't make you happy. If this were a relationship giving you the same level of unhappiness, would you walk away? There are, of course, the perceived risks which stop you from quitting there and then fear of change, not being able to find another job that pays the same, or not being able to find another job full stop. But relishing change can be extremely positive and rewarding. If you are unhappy in your current role, take a step back and work out what is causing that unhappiness. Start this course again and work out your personal visions to discover where you're falling short in your current job. From there, you can have a better understanding of the root cause and start the process of discovering something that works better for you. If you want. My advice, never settled just because it feels too challenging to move on, you will only regret the things you didn't do. 9. Using recruitment companies: Using recruitment companies. Recruitment companies and independent recruiters are certainly a good source when looking for specific roles and industries. However, you should always keep in mind your own core values. Remember that recruiters most often work on commission. They work for and report to the companies who employ them. Meaning recruiters are more inclined to find a candidate to suit the role, as opposed to finding a role which perfectly suits the candidate. That's not to say all recruitment companies are awful and you should avoid them like the plague. I've used my fair share of recruitment agencies in the past. I've always found them to be helpful, but it's always important to consider things for yourself. As I've said in this course earlier, the best person to develop your career plan is you. Just because a recruiter has advised a job to be the perfect fit for you, does not necessarily mean it will be. Having said all of that. I've often found recruiters to be very knowledgeable when it comes to advertising yourself. They know exactly what skills and expertise are favored by employers. And they can give you some great advice if you're finding it hard to get yourself noticed in a certain industry. Great recruiters will always be happy to spend a little time with you, whether that be in person or over the phone, just to discover your personality, rather than merely using your CV as a judgment of you. Building a good rapport with a recruiter can lead to long-term opportunities to, since they will always remember you. As a side note, I'm not overly comfortable with unsolicited recruiters, which is becoming more prevalent in today's society given social media, I find it quite lazy and unprofessional. I'm very often inundated with private messages on my LinkedIn page from recruiters, he feel my profile would be an excellent match for a role they're hiring for. Whilst the roles may be suitable, I would feel uneasy giving my contact details to such a person. Just be aware if the recruiter is indifferent about who they contact on these platforms. For example, just sending the same message to multiple people than there might be a risk of them being careless with your data. And thus, your current employer could even be informed of your application. 10. Take the time to invest in yourself: Take the time to invest in yourself. Start off on the right foot with your career journey and make things easier from the beginning by giving yourself a little TLC. There are some commonly overlooked areas when it comes to career development. And by paying close attention, you can really stand out from the crowd. Your CV. Make sure your CV is up-to-date and it feels interesting to read it somewhat pointless taking the time to develop a career plan. If you don't take the time to sell yourself to your prospective employers, there are thousands of free resources online to help you develop your CV. I'd also encourage you to watch my CV masterclass course. Be sure to highlight your personal strengths, as well as showcasing what skills you have for the rolling question, it adds personality and leaves a lasting impression. There is nothing more boring as an employer than reading the same Cv over and over again. So it's well worth spending the time to make your CV read differently. Publish your notable achievements. Perhaps add links to your online media or portfolio. You can even make the design seem more interesting, especially if you're applying to a creative industry, there's no written rule that you'll see v must be on a white background with black text. So as long as it looks presentable, there's nothing wrong with adding a little color. Sometimes. Your online presence. These days, it's commonplace to apply online for job opportunities. Gone are the days of formally submitting your application in person and in its place of various social platforms such as LinkedIn, allowing you to showcase yourself virtually to prospective employers. Just like how companies have brands. You are your own brand. And you need to make sure you're presenting yourself in a way that seems appealing. Not only that, but our online presence, especially LinkedIn, can open so many doors and opportunities that were otherwise difficult to navigate previously. You can connect with people who already work in your desired sector, who may be able to give an insight into how they've managed to get started. What's more? You have the ability to gain endorsements and recommendations from your peers. Helping prospective employers to gain confidence in your brand. Just like how we look at reviews for companies and products online. Linkedin also has a brilliant job board. Their unique algorithm can tailor job opportunities to your skills and experience. And you have the option to advertise your profile to potential recruiters by setting your current job position is open and looking for a new role. In doing so, you can quite often receive connections and messages from recruiters with niche opportunities, which might well be a perfect fit for you. Using social media and other online platforms. You can even share your own expertise. Consider publishing articles, setting up your own blog, and building yourself a website to showcase your portfolio of work. This can be especially beneficial if you're looking to work in the IT or design industry where you can better present your talent and use it as a reference point in interviews. It goes without saying, but it's crucial to ensure your online presence doesn't do any harm to your potential opportunities. Be sure to tidy up any loose ends online. Untag yourself in photos which might be a little off putting to employers. Or better still. Consider making some of your personal social media accounts private. You interviews are daunting for some. There's nothing worse than feeling nervous in an interview. It can make you stumble over your words. Forget crucial parts you wanted to highlight, or even make employees feel like you're uninterested. If you find them difficult or nerve wracking, it might be worth considering taking some classes to help with being confident and asserting yourself in those situations. Often you'll find in these courses, you'll be told to make yourself look presentable by wearing a suit and looking formal. Whilst I appreciate it can be imperative in certain situations. I'm not here to tell you what to wear or how to look. Rather, you should try to ensure that you are displaying a good representation of your true personality. Gone are the days where you must be suited and booted for job interviews in order to convey an air of professionalism, interview is look for personality. Of course, they want to know that you are qualified professional and have the skills required. But it's also good to show some personality in order to stand out from the crowd. Most job openings will have many applicants and multiple interviewees. So it's important to dress for how you want to be perceived. This certainly doesn't mean that you don't need to look smart. You should still bear in mind that you're attending an interview, of course. But your outfit should represent to you that could be through colors and accessories, or perhaps hairstyles and makeup. Always strive to be your authentic self. And finally, be flexible. Remember to be open-minded to change. Your career development plan is not permanent. There's a common saying that I always encourage people to remember. You learn something new every day. Part of career development is learning more about yourself as you go. Be prepared to be flexible and change directions occasionally, be that a complete career change or just altering your career milestones here in there, you can't predict the future. It could well be that your personal life takes a different road. You might have a child, you relocate to a different country. You might even want to take some time out to travel. Or perhaps you don't enjoy the role you took on. Don't see these things as a setback or a negative impact on your career. Rather, you're one step closer to finding out what you truly enjoy. Thanks for joining me on this course. I hope it's been useful for you. I'd really appreciate it if you could pop a review and provide some feedback. If you enjoyed this course. Why does it take a look at the other courses in my business series, including assertive communication, excellence and leadership, communicating your vision and values, digital marketing fundamentals, and mastering the art of selling.