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 ‘personal’
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.
Building Rich Money Habits 101: my personal finance story
Saturday, May 1st, 2010I have always thought there’s only one formula in making money. That is work hard and at the end of each month, you get your paycheck. Growing up in a family of farmers, I have seen what working hard really means. I’ve experienced waking up early in the morning, go to the farm, plant or harvest rice until the sun sets in. When you go home after a long day of working, the aching muscles says it all. It is HARD work. I’ve learned from my parents that if you want to have some money, you have to work for it. Often times, I’d go along with my mom to harvest tobacco leaves from a nearby town, and afterwards, she’d pay me for how much I was able to harvest. That’s always been my training in terms of making money. That was my first money habit – work to earn.
When I was in College, I wanted very much to help my parents pay for my education. I was fortunate to have been granted a full scholarship, so that took care of the tuition. Even then, making money from a far away province, and spending it in the most expensive city in the country is no easy task. It is an uphill battle similar to walking up to a going down escalator. So in my own little way, I also tried to make money by applying as student assistant to one of the universities’ projects. It doesn’t pay much since it is a government project but enough to pay some of my daily expenses and grow my confidence.
After graduating, I immediately started work as a mainframe programmer for a multinational IT company. The offer I got then was around 16,000 pesos which was BIG money then for someone who’s fresh out of college and don’t have much working experience. I worked very hard and was fortunate enough to be promoted almost every year.
As my paycheck increased, my appetite for consumption also increased. I bought a refrigerator, a washing machine, gas stove, shoes, etc, ALL at the same time, EVEN when I didn’t have the money to pay for it. I just used my new credit card! That’s when my debt started to pile up. The “easy” monthly payments never lived up to its promise. No monthly payment was easy, especially when you only have your paycheck to rely on. As my debt seemingly increased every month, I also had to worry about paying my monthly house rental, buying groceries, eating out with friends, and more. There were times I was so out of money I even had to do “cash advance” on my credit card. As some of you might know, you get to pay a hefty “fee” for doing a cash advance. This is on top of the amount of money you actually “advanced”. My already big debt, ballooned even more! I was so ashamed of having to do cash advance, I promised right there and then, I had to pay for my debt no matter what. It was like a having compound interest working against me. I had to learn how money works. I had to figure it out no matter what. I had no choice.
While pondering my huge debt, I tried to look for ways to earn more money. I tried doing some programming projects for friends. I even entered the world of network marketing, tried selling wellness products and failed miserably. I remember that my only “downlines” (a term indicating those you’ve recruited into the business) was my mother, my aunt, and a few of my friends. It was a learning experience. The thing that struck me most, was that my “need” for money, was being transferred to my “clients”, without me being conscious of it. It was hard “selling” something you don’t 100% believe in and it’s even harder when your motivation is “making” more money without necessarily helping other people. I think this mindset barrier is one of the reasons why I was not able to make it work. Everyday, I had to battle with myself. Am I here to really help other people? Or is it just because of the money?
One time, while me and my friends were hanging out at a bookstore, I saw the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. I heard my friend say it’s a great book, so I bought it, took it home and devoured the stories and financial lessons in the book. The book opened my eyes to the world of money I never knew existed before. That’s when I realized that the rich have different sets of money habits from the poor and the middle class. For the first time, it finally made sense why I can’t seem to be making a dent on my credit card debt; why I can’t seem to sell anything at all. Because I had the wrong money habits. I had to learn rich money habits to achieve financial freedom.
After that, it got me excited to learn more about money. First, I signed-up for our company’s savings plan. I started really small. At first, only about 2% of my paycheck is automatically deducted and kept under my savings account. I don’t even get to hold the money. After a month, I increased it to 5%, then to 10%. After a year of saving, I was able to set aside 20% of my paycheck without necessarily scrimping myself too much. That was rich money habit #1 – pay yourself first.
With the savings, I had, I was able to pay my debt slowly buy surely. More than that, it gave me confidence to know that I can do it, with the proper discipline and rich money habit. When the opportunity came for me to be assigned to the US for a 6-month stint in my company, I was able to save even more and pay-off the rest of my credit card debt. That was rich money habit #2 – get out of bad debt as soon as possible!
I also started to take serious notice of the numerous calls I got from insurance agents offering life insurance. Before, I would always make up numerous excuses just to avoid talking to them. But now, I wanted to know more how I can use the different insurance products to protect myself and my family. I also started reading more on business, money, investing and personal finance. After a few years, I managed to save up for an emergency fund. That’s rich money habit #3 – Get some protection!
I’m still a long way to go from financial freedom. That is my goal. I am in the process of learning how to build passive and semi-passive income, and I am loving every minute of it. In this website, I will share whatever I learned so that you too can build your own rich money habits and ensure your financial success and freedom!