How To Create A Career Development Plan for Success
A career development plan helps you reach your work goals. This plan thinks about your future jobs. It helps you have the skills for new jobs. A good development plan takes time and has steps. When the steps are done you can have your dream job!
Why a Career Development Plan is Important
A development plan has many benefits:
It helps you get skills for a new job
You will need new skills when you want a different job. A development plan helps you get these skills for your new job goals.
It helps you plan the steps
Getting a new job takes many small steps over months or years. A good development plan spells out all of these steps.
It keeps you focused
A development plan reminds you what job you want. It is easy to get distracted from your goals. Your plan keeps you focused on the end job you want.
It gives you power
A plan gives you control of your career. You choose what jobs and skills to go after in your future. This gives you power over your work life.
It reduces stress
Working on a development plan helps you feel less worried. Having clear steps written out makes big goals feel smaller. Stress goes down when you have a guide to follow.
It gets you excited!
Thinking about your dream job and making plans is fun! It helps you want to get out of bed to work on your career goals every day.
Now that you know why a career development plan matters, let’s talk about how to make one.
6 Steps to Career Development Planning
Follow these six steps to create your own career development plan:
1. Know Yourself
Think about what you like and what you’re good at. This will help you pick jobs to go after. Ask yourself
- What do I enjoy doing most at work?
- What do people say I am skilled at?
- What are my strengths and talents?
2. Pick a Target Job
Decide what job you want in the future. This will be your target job. Get very specific here about:
- Job title and type of work
- Company you want to work for
- Salary range
- Location, hours, benefits
3. Identify Skills You’ll Need
Research the target job skills, education needs and experience required. Make a list of these things you’ll need to qualify for your dream job.
4. Assess Your Current Skills
Make a list of the skills, education and experience you have right now. Compare this to what your target job needs. Look at gaps showing skills you need to develop.
5. Outline Development Goals
Make some SMART goals to fill in skill gaps from Step 4. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-based. This keeps goals clear and trackable.
Some examples:
- Take 2 Excel courses by June to improve data skills
- Get sales manager job experience by working 10 hours a week in that role for the next year
6. Execute and Update
Work your plan! Complete goals starting today. Review your plan every few months. Look at what you’ve done. Set new goals once old ones get finished. Update your target job if needed.
Be proud working hard on your career plan! Small steps add up over time into big success.
Career Development Plan Examples
Below are two examples of career development plans:
Teacher Becoming School Principal
Malik has been a 4th grade teacher for 7 years. He wants to become a school principal in 5 years.
His plan has goals like:
- Earn master’s degree in education leadership
- Gain experience mentoring new teachers at his school
- Take on leadership role as after school program director
Apply to principal jobs at local schools
Software Engineer Becoming Machine Learning Engineer
Priya has worked for 3 years as a software engineer. She wants to transition into the high paying field of machine learning engineering.
Some of her plan goals are:
- Take online machine learning certificate courses
- Start side projects at work applying machine learning code
- Gain experience mentoring interns on machine learning projects
Apply to machine learning engineer jobs at tech companies
Can you see how both plans break a big goal down into smaller steps? You can follow this model!
Tips for Career Development Success
Here are some final tips:
Ask managers at your workplace for feedback on strengths and growth areas to inform goals. Not sure who to ask? Talk to HR.
Research jobs on LinkedIn and job boards to learn what skills are in demand to put in your plan.
Break big goals into smaller steps with target dates for completing them. Meet with a career coach or mentor in fields you want to get into for advice on your plan. Be flexible! It’s OK to change your target job or steps as you learn more.
The key is taking that first step towards progress and having patience reaching end goals.
