A personal career development plan enables you to keep track of progress in your own career. It is a reliable way to analyze your motivations, aspirations, and achievements. Several career-oriented individuals create a career development plan not just to accomplish certain goals, such as a promotion or raise in the job, but also for further career advancement. Hence, it should be given much focus.
Essentials In Career Development Plan
Creating your career development plan must be done continuously, instead of focusing on specific work objectives. That way, you can easily keep track of whatever improvements you have or where there is need for one. It is not just confined to career-related documents but may also include materials that you have collected over time that reflect your motivation and aspirations when it comes to your career.
Below are few things you can do to back up your career development plan:
Update your resume. – Your resume is a crucial reflection of your career path. Therefore, if you have new or existing skills, achievements in previous employment, or personal achievements, make sure to include it in your CV.
List all your job descriptions. – This is essential to your career planning. By evaluating and analyzing your performance from previous jobs, you will be able to detect whether there are improvements or recognize which areas you need improve on. If you can, gather evidence of any achievements you have for they might come handy during job interviews.
Gather job advertisements. – This tip is helpful even to those employed individuals. This will enable you to identify whether there are any other existing jobs that are more suitable for your qualifications and that offer self-fulfillment.
Create A Personal Vision
Some people constantly change careers not because of compensation or competition, but more often because they are not personally satisfied with their careers. Therefore, when devising your own career plan, you have to create your own personal vision.
Your career plan or objectives can be either long or short term. Hence, before you move on with your career planning, you have to determine yours first. There are a lot to consider when planning your career path, however personal considerations should be on top of the list.
What are the personal barriers that impede your progress? Are you doing this for personal satisfaction and achievement, or is this what my family desires for me? As long as you have considered factors that not only involve the people around you but also yourself, then you can remain motivated in achieving the goals you have set for yourself.
Personal Career Planning Steps
1.If you are contemplating on multiple careers, try narrowing them down so you can focus on the career most suitable for you.
2.Research about your prospect career. When you have more information and knowledge about your chosen career, you will also recognize the skills needed in order to succeed in that career.
3.If you are looking to make a transition from one career to another, identify the necessary qualifications.
4.Once you have determined the qualifications needed for your new career, compare it with your current career profile. Evaluate what skills or knowledge you need to acquire in order to match the job search. If it requires a lot of work, then you might need to reconsider whether changing careers should be an option. If you are close to the qualification, then you can move on.
For long-term career planning, you need to be more precise and specific with your guidelines. After all, you will have to be the one dealing with the consequence of your choices. When creating your personal development plan, you must consider not only career opportunities in the market but also your own skills and abilities.
Posts Tagged ‘Development’
Personal Career Development Plan: Essential for Success
Saturday, July 31st, 2010Students’ Personal Career Development Counseling – Its Benefits And Importance
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010It has become the practice for high schools in United States to observe Career Days for senior students for many decades now. On this day high school students are introduced to various careers open to them by local business professionals in the school. However, these days are proving insufficient to enable the students of high school to plan their future. That is why most middle-aged adults and youngsters seek the personal guidance of coaches in career development.
Personal coaches in the field of career development offer a very essential service to people who are late planners of their careers. A lot remains to be done to help the youngsters in career development. When the best career options are enumerated for students of high schools, it helps them develop a better understanding of the careers they would prefer, resulting in more efficient planning and more enrollments in colleges leading to a more productive future society.
For many high schools, the practice of a Career Day has taken the form of a whole Career Week to tackle these issues. A couple of days in this week are utilized to introduce the seniors to various career pathways by seasoned community professionals. The assessments resembling those by personal coaches in career development are taken up during the remaining week.
These assessments help the students of high school to become aware of their strengths and weaknesses and also to explore where their values and interests lie. These assessments are then fed to a computer system. The system generates a report outlining the best career options for that particular student. The students then go through further training via Handbook of the Occupational Outlook.
The Handbook of Occupational Outlook is a top rated career development tool for personal career development in the arsenal of high school. The Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States has put this publication in electronic form as well as in the book form. This enables the students to access valuable information about details of career, industry outlooks and job prospects for the future, the education required and average salaries.
When these assessments of career development of high school students are over, they undergo interviews with either the counselor of the high school or the coach of career development. These students are led through the interviews to explore fully the career options, have discussions with the coaches and reach decisions about the field in which they want to make their careers. Then several resources are provided to the student of the high school to give him a start on his career development path.
Another aspect of activities of career development is that the counselors or the coaches of personal career development visit the senior classrooms and take important sessions on goal setting and its importance in career development. These students get resources to set their goals practically and begin to pen down their plan for personal career development.
Although personal career development concept and its importance is not new for students of high schools, plans for personal career development education are being put into place by schools only now. These initiatives will prepare more and more students of high schools to begin careers or education as soon as they finish high school, thereby leading to a more productive future society.
Free Web Development Business Plan
Sunday, July 4th, 2010Free Web Development Business Plan for Loans
Obtaining Business Financing
When obtaining a business loan for a website development business, it is imperative that you have a properly structured business plan that will assist you in showcasing how you intend to operate your Web Development business, how the business will operate, how you intend to market the business, the anticipated financial results of your company, and how you intend to repay your debt obligations. This sample loan business plan will provide you with the framework that you need in order to acquire a business loan for starting or expanding this type of business.
Executive Summary
Introduction
When obtaining a business loan for a web development business, it is imperative that your business plan has a clear and concise executive summary that provides an outline of what are seeking to accomplish, how much capital you are seeking to raise, the management biography of the business owner, and an overview of the anticipated profit and loss statements of the business. Here is an example of how the title paragraph should be written:
Web Development, Inc. (“the Company”) is seeking a business loan of $100,000 in order to launch the operations of a web development business that will be based in San Francisco, California. The Company was founded in (Insert Year). The business was founded by Mr. John Doe.
Products and Services
In the next segment of the business loan and business planning document, you should showcase the products and services that you will be providing to the general public. For instance:
Web Development, Inc. will provide customers with a broad range of web development services including website development, web application development, e-commerce site development, and web hosting. The business will earn substantial revenues from the website development services coupled with recurring streams of revenue from the web hosting revenues that will be generated on a monthly basis.
Business Loan Terms
Now it is time to discuss the anticipated terms of the business plan that you are seeking. An example paragraph of how this is stated:
At this time, Mr. Doe is seeking a conventional business loan in the amount of $100,000. The interest rate, loan terms, and loan covenants are to be determined during negotiation. However, this business plan assumes that the business will receive a seven year business loan with a seven percent interest rate due on the outstanding principal balance.
Management Biography
Now that the summary of the business has been provided, it is time to provide a brief overview of the owner of the business. An example paragraph summing up the owner is as follows:
Mr. Doe is a highly experienced business person that has years of experience regarding the direct ownership and management of business. He will be able to effectively bring the operations of the Web Development business to profitability while ensuring that the business loan’s payments and its covenants are met at all times.
Financial Statements
The most important thing to your lender when applying for a business loan is how you intend to repay the bank. In this section of the business plan, you should provide an overview of the finance’s of the business discussing the anticipated revenues, expenses, and profits/losses. You can also discuss the applicable collateral within the business plan that will be used to secure your business financing.
Expansion Plans
One of the most important aspects of your business plan is how you intend to expand the business over a three to five year period. Banks and finance companies always want to see that the business will experience a moderate to strong level of growth. This is especially true in business lending because as your business grows the cash flow that secures your business loan will decrease proportionality against your monthly credit obligations. An example of how this is stated is as follows:
The Web Development business will continue to expand through organic means including increasing the Company’s advertising budget via the reinvestment into the after tax cash flows of the business.
The Financing
Use of Business Loan Proceeds
In this section of the business plan you should focus on how the proceeds of the business loan will be used. An example of this would be as follows:
Management Equity
In this section of the business plan you should discuss the percentage ownership of the business among the owners of the business. For example:
Mr. Doe will own 100% of the Web Development, Inc.
Board of Directors
When applying for business financing, the bank will also want to know who serves as the board of directors. For small businesses, usually the owner serves as the director of the business. An example of how this is worded:
Mr. Doe will be the sole director of Web Development, Inc.
Exit Strategy
Any bank or financing company is also going to want to know what you intend to do with the business over a set period of time. Many business owners will develop and expand a business with the intent to sell the company to a third party at a later time. When drafting this part of the business plan you should focus on what you intentions are in regards to potentially selling the business. This is often worded as:
Mr. Doe would most likely sell the Web Development businesses to a third party for a significant earnings multiple. Website Development businesses usually sell for approximately one to three times earnings given the financial strength of the business. In this event, the business would be sold by a business broker and the business loan sought in this plan would be repaid according to the covenants of the business loan agreement.
Products and Services
When developing a business plan that is appropriate for obtaining a business loan or other business credit facility you need to clearly showcase the services or products that you will be offering to the general public. An example of how this section is worded goes as follows:
As stated in the executive summary, Web Development, Inc. will specialize in the ongoing development of website development, web applications, and hosting services to the general public on a nationwide basis. The business intends to hire a number of independent contractors that will work on the Company’s behalf when developing websites for the Company’s clients. The business will also generate highly recurring streams of revenues from the ongoing sale of hosting services for people that do not own their own website hosting servers.
Industry and Market Analysis
The Current State of the Economy
It is important to let your financial institution know that you are well apprised of the financial situation of the general economy when you are applying for a business loan. This is especially true in today’s environment where lending has become more difficult and will remain more difficult in the foreseeable future. Specifically, you should gear this section of the business plan analysis towards the industry that you are operating within. For example:
The current economy has remained difficult over the past few years. However, Web Development businesses tend to operate with a strong degree of economic stability as these businesses are able to generate highly recurring streams of revenue from the fees associated with hosting services. As such, the business will be able to remain profitable and cash flow positive in any economic climate despite the current deleterious conditions in the general economy.
The Web Development Industry
In addition to providing your business loan officer with an understanding of the general economy, it is important that you showcase that you have an equal understanding of the industry in which you are operating within. As such, you will need to provide you business loan institution of a brief overview of your industry and any potential changes that may affect the way that your company does business. An example of how an industry overview is as follows:
In the United States, there are approximately 100,000 companies and individual providers that are able to provide web development services to the general public. Aggregately, these businesses generate more than $50 billion per year while providing gross payrolls exceeding $20 billion. The industry outlook is strong for the web development industry as every business now wants to have a presence on the internet.
Target Market
In this section of the business loan application and business plan analysis, you should focus on the demographics of your localized market (or national market if applicable). This section should discuss how many people live in your area, the anticipated number of people that would require the use of Web Development Services, the median household income of people living in the area, poverty line statistics, and any applicable laws that would apply to your operation of Web Development Companies.
Competition
Many people that are developing new businesses or expanding existing businesses often feel that their business does not have any competition or limited competition at best. However, this is almost never the case. Unless you have re-invented the wheel – you will have competition. When applying for a business loan, you should clearly showcase your competition in your business plan. This is especially important to your banker as they will be able to gauge your ability to be successful in your targeted market. Many business loan underwriters will aggressively confirm that competitive nature of your local market and your local industry.
When drafting this section of the plan you should heavily discuss the competitive advantages that you intend to have over your competition.
Marketing Plan
In addition to all of the above information that we have covered, your business loan officer is also going to want to know how you intend to market your business to the general public. Most people do not quite understand how to effectively market their business outside of prominent signage or flyer distribution. When applying for a business loan (again in this difficult lending climate), your banker is going to want to see that you have a clear methodology of how you intend to market your services or products to the general public. In this section of the business plan – we will overview how to showcase your services/products to the general public.
Marketing Overview Example
Marketing Strategies Overview
Additionally, you will be required to further drill down (in your business plan) how you intend to implement your strategies when you launch or expand your business’s operations. In this section of the business loan and business plan documents, you should amplify the bullet points from the section above. For instance:
The Web Development intends to use a number of strategies that will create instant traffic and customer flow to the Company’s location. These strategies include not only using prominent facility and road signage, but also distributing flyers to people that fall into he Company’s targeted demographics. The business will also regularly take out advertisements in localized newspapers that showcase the Company’s hours of operations, web development and web application development services, and specials that are occurring with the on a regular basis.
The business will also maintain a highly informative website that showcases the Web Development company’s services, its hours of operation, service information, and other relevant information in regards to the Company’s services. This website will be listed on major search engines such as Google as many people now use the internet to locate web development businesses.
The Financial Plan
Beyond any other part of your business loan application or business plan, the financials section of these documents are what matters most when applying for a business loan or any other type of credit facility. Ultimately, this section of the business plan showcases not only what your anticipated profitability will be, but also how you intend to repay the funds that you have borrowed through your business financing facility. An example of how this section is structure is as follows:
Assumptions
Proforma Financials for a Business Loan
Now it is time to showcase how you intend to repay your loan, generate a profit, and increase the book value of your business over a three to five year period. BusinessPlansForLoan.com has developed an easy to use financial model that you can use when drafting out the financial model for your business plan and business loan application. Through your business loan application, you will be required to have the following: