19,May 2022 GFGC Gauribidanur: Placement and IQAC cell
What Is Career Planning?
Career planning is a process for:
- Identifying what you are good at
- Knowing how your skills, talents, values, and interests translate into possible jobs or careers
- Matching your skills, etc. to existing jobs or careers
- Matching your career goals to your financial needs
- Matching your career goals to your educational needs
- Making good decisions for yourself
- Finding ways to meet your educational and financial needs on your schedule
It is important to understand how your individual cultural context influences your worldview. Each of us has an individual worldview composing our attitudes, values, opinions, and beliefs about how things work in the world. Your Cultural Context surrounds the entire career planning process, and includes your cultural heritage and life experiences.
The Career Planning Process Itself Has Three Main Components:
- Skills
- Values
- Experience
- Interests
- Education
- Researching occupational and job profiles
- Conducting informational interviews
- Attending career and job fairs
- Gathering labor-market information
- Decision making
- Goal setting
- Problem solving
- Action planning
Why do career planning?
It is well established that most jobs that pay family-sustaining wages require some post-secondary education (that is, education beyond the high school level). By taking the time to plan for your career now, you increase the chances of completing your education and getting the job you want.
What’s the difference between a job and a career?
A job is the occupation that you have at any given point in time. A career refers to your working life over time, and could include a single job that you stay in for many years, or a series of successive jobs within the same field. For example, you may decide to become a seventh-grade math teacher and stay in that job for 20 or 30 years or more, all the while gathering experience and additional training. In this case, you could say that your job was a math teacher, and that you also have a career as a math teacher. Or, you may decide simply that you want a career in health care. You might choose to begin that career as a certified nursing aide and then, with additional education, become a surgical technologist and then a registered nurse. It’s important to think about both your short-term and long-term goals.
Planning Your Career and Educational Goals
To guide you through the Career Planning unit and its activities, you can use the Career and Education Planning Worksheet. After you complete an activity and the worksheet that goes with it, transfer the key information to this worksheet. As you visit the other pages in this unit, you will learn more about your skills, occupations that use those skills, and the education needed for those occupations. After you complete an activity, and the worksheet that goes with it, you will then transfer key information to your Career and Education Planning Worksheet.
Part of career planning is deciding on which action to take based on the information you collect. By completing all the worksheets in the Career Planning unit, you will create a Career Plan with specific action steps to take. Having this plan will better prepare you to know what information you will need to find in other sections of the website, such as Applying to College and Financial Planning.
Head over to the Self-Exploration page!
Career Development Meaning, Importance, Steps & Example
What is Career Development?
Career development is the series of activities or the on-going/lifelong process of developing one’s career which includes defining new goals regularly and acquiring skills to achieve them. Career development usually refers to managing one’s career in an intra-organizational or inter-organizational scenario. It involves training on new skills, moving to higher job responsibilities, making a career change within the same organization, moving to a different organization or starting one’s own business.
Career development is directly linked to the goals and objectives set by an individual. It starts with self-actualization and self-assessment of one’s interests and capabilities. The interests are then matched with the available options.
The individual needs to train himself to acquire the skills needed for the option or career path chosen by him. Finally, after acquiring the desired competency, he has to perform to achieve the goals and targets set by him.
Career development is directly linked to an individual’s growth and satisfaction and hence should be managed by the individual and not left to the employer. Career development helps an individual grow not only professionally but also personally. Learning new skills like leadership, time management, good governance, communication management, team management etc. also help an employee develop and shape their career.
5 Steps of Career Development
There are various steps or stages in a person's overall career development:
1. Self Assessment
The first step in career development is the self assessment which means that the individual has to assess oneself on the kind of career and growth one wants and what kind of skills and interests are there.
2. Career Awareness
This stage is when an individual explores various career paths which align with the self assessment done in the first step. Career awareness can be how a person can explore various domains and types of jobs/work available
3. Goal Setting
This is the most important step in career development because this is where one defines clear short term and long term goals to meet the career one aspires. Both short term and long term goals need to be defined to begin with.
Short team goals would be more actionable but long term goals can be changed or tweaked as per the growth.
4. Skill Training
Once the career and goals are set, one needs to acquire the right skills to achieve the growth. Skill training can be done through self training or joining a structured training program online or offline. Once the right skills are acquired, one can start the final stage.
5. Performing
With all the right knowledge and skills, the important part is to perform the tasks and jobs in the career successfully to grow in the career path.
The 5 steps are part of an ongoing process. Many times in a career, the person would need to revisit the cycle to get the right career growth.
Importance of Career Development
Every employee working in an organization is looking for a career development which moves in the right direction. Career path taken by an employee determines the growth. Career should be planned in a way that it moves forward.
Career development provides the framework with skills, goals, awareness, assessment and performance which helps an individual to move in the right direction and achieve the goals one has in one's career. Careful career planning is always useful for individuals to succeed professionally and also helps to boost employee motivation in the organization.
Career Development Strategies
The development of an individual's career is driven by several factors. Strategies to improve someone's career can be driven either by the company through organization development or by the individual himself or herself. Some strategies of career development are as following.
1. By Companies
Training and development by companies can help in employees learn new skills. Companies help in providing leadership development, management development etc. This is all done through employee training sessions or developmental counselling. Employee development in the long run helps in career development.
2. By Employees
Individuals can themselves boost their own career. This is done through constant evaluation of their skills using techniques like continuing professional development.
Continuous and repetitive efforts can help in the career development for an employee.
Career Development Example
Imagine a person working in an organization in delivery department. The responsibilities include delivery packages and picking up return requests. Over time after becoming and expert the person decided to learn order management and starts training for it within the organization and learns the skills. He takes a role in another organization and enters the order management and delivery domain hence rising in the career.
Few years in the role, the person understand the supply chain management and warehouse management quite well and in the same organization moves as a manager in the supply chain department and keeps acquiring more skills in the SCM department. This is an example of how a person can develop career over the years by acquiring new skills through experience and training and can move to different roles within the organization or with other organizations.
What are the steps involved in career planning?
For successful career planning, consider following these steps:
1. Complete a self-evaluation
The first, and sometimes most difficult, step of career planning is to make an informed decision by understanding yourself and what you want to do. For this, you will need to consider your personality, strengths, weaknesses, values, interests, talents, aptitude and goals. You can determine these things by creating a self-evaluation list that includes the following questions:
What do I enjoy doing the most?
In what do I excel?
What are the things that motivate me?
What are the things I dislike doing?
What strengths do I have?
What are my weaknesses?
What type of lifestyle do I want?
What kind of work-life balance do I want?
Do I want to work in an office or outside?
What is my desired salary level?
Am I an extrovert or an introvert?
Do I enjoy frequent interactions with other people?
Do I work better on my own?
Do I want to do work that makes a positive difference to society?
Do I want a career that brings me social prestige?
What can I do with my educational qualifications and experience?
Do I have the time and money to get the necessary qualifications and develop new skills?
Do I have leadership qualities?
Do I have creative and enterprising qualities?
Am I able to handle responsibilities?
Am I able to bounce back from failures and setbacks?
Am I able to stay calm and focused in stressful situations?
Am I willing to relocate for the job?
Am I willing to work night-shifts if the job calls for it?
You can also use online career assessment tools or consult a career counselor to get help in figuring out what kind of occupation and work environment will suit you best. Take your time with the self-evaluation and make sure you're clear about what you want to do in the future before you take the next step.
2. Conduct career research
After you have figured out your interests, aptitude and strengths, research different types of careers that could potentially suit you. If you have consulted a counselor or used online career assessment tools, you may get career suggestions, and you can start with those. Otherwise, you can research the different industries that you find promising and compile a list of the jobs that are possible in them.
You can then research each job separately and gather information about the educational qualifications, skills, training and experience necessary for assuming that role. You can find out what the work responsibilities are, what the work environment is like and what advancement opportunities are available. Additionally, you can gather information about the position's salary levels and benefits. It can also help to discover the advantages and disadvantages of that profession.
Once you understand the practical realities of different jobs, trim down your list to the more suitable options. You can research these further by connecting with experienced professionals and getting their first-hand perspectives on what the work involves. Consider your interest and capability for following in their steps. That will make it easier for you to make your final choice.
3. Perform market research
Before you commit yourself to any career, it is advisable to conduct market research on its current and future viability. You should find out if there is a current demand for the job in the industry and if there will still be a demand for it in the next 10 or 20 years. You can also find out how you can adapt and what types of work choices would be available to you if things change in the future.
4. Start skills research
Compile a list of educational qualifications and skills that are essential for the career and find out how you can get them. You may have to research educational institutes that offer the requisite training. These institutes should outline the courses you can take, if you can take online, part-time or full-time courses, the course duration and the admission eligibility and fees. It may also help to learn about the continuing education you will need once you get started in the career.
5. Assess your options
After gathering the relevant information about the shortlisted careers, do an honest assessment of how well-suited you are for them. Carefully consider if you can sustain your interest in the job long-term, if you can handle the daily responsibilities of the position and if it can provide you with the lifestyle you want. Determine if you have the time and resources to get the necessary education for your selected career.
6. Consider interview research
Once you have finalized your career choice and decided how to get the education and skills training, you need to plan the steps you can take to get the job. Find out what the interview process is for the profession and prepare thoroughly for it. Look up interview videos online and note how the successful candidates present themselves. Practice answering commonly asked interview questions with a friend and record yourself to get an idea of your confidence level and body language. Pinpoint your weaknesses and work to improve them.
7. Explore work experience options
Find out about the availability of internship opportunities or part-time work positions in your chosen career. If there are any, consider sending in your application letters. While the salary may be minimal for such jobs, you can get invaluable learning experience and be able to develop important professional connections. Having work experience often makes it easier for you to find a full-time job later.
8. Begin your job search
It is a good idea to start looking for jobs before you finish your educational qualifications. You can find out about different companies in your industry, the types of job requirements they have and which skills are in high demand. You can learn how to write effective application letters, cover letters and resumes that will catch the attention of recruiters and hiring managers.
9. Accept a position
After you apply for positions, you may end up getting job offers from different companies. At this juncture, the self-evaluation list you prepared before will prove useful. You can review the company size, job demands, possibility of career advancement, salary, benefits, location and so on and make a decision that's right for you.
Related: Utilise Your Aptitude to Find the Right Career
Tips for career planning
You can consider using these career planning tips to stay relevant in your profession:
Keep up with the changes in the industry and be ready to adjust your career plans accordingly.
Network with industry professionals online and offline and build cordial and mutually beneficial relationships.
Study the job market and remain alert for available opportunities.
Be willing to relocate if that's necessary to get the job you want.
Take continuing education courses and learn new skills.
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