The future of work is many things. It’s about candidates moving jobs a lot more. It’s about employers putting emphasis on upskilling. It’s about multiple career changes becoming much more common. This means that employees are becoming less likely to simply stay in a role without giving any thought to their career as a whole.
In fact, a lack of career development is often why employees quit jobs. A 2012 Randstad employee survey showed that 86% of employees quit their jobs due to a lack of career development. In an ideal world, your company or manager would work on a career development plan with you. However, this doesn’t always happen and even if it does, you may see your career ending up in completely different company or even a different industry, and not every company will be so enamoured to hear the ‘honest’ version of your ideal career future.
So, regardless of your current role or manager, it’s always an important exercise to create a career development plan for yourself. Whether you’re happy and comfortable with your current position or wondering where your very next move will be, having a well-thought out trajectory of where you want your future to be is highly valuable. So, where do you start?
To know where you’re going in life, you first need to know where you are. Take the time to reflect on your career to date. Think about your experience so far, the skills you’ve gained, the education you’ve had. Think about your USP – the unique things that make you a particular asset that can’t necessarily be quantified in skills or years. Think about your strongest soft skills as well as your technical capabilities.
Write all of these attributes down, almost as if you were writing a job spec in reverse. Instead of skills and attributes required for a role, you’re writing down everything you have to offer. It doesn’t have to be done in CV-style buzzwords or a skills checklist. Think about the nebulous praise you’ve been given in the past. Has a former manager told you that you have a knack for turning brainstorming sessions into actionable plans? Have you been pegged as someone who is able to rally a team together on a big project? Are you particularly skilled at spotting how certain people’s skills can be transferrable? Write it all down. These all add value and could be important for your career development.
It’s one thing to try to figure out what your next job might be. But a career development plan is all about mapping a road that will lead you to some sort of end goal, or at least a long-term goal down the road. Where would you like to be in five years?
If you don’t know your end goal, you can use your self-reflection to help you figure it out. After you’ve written out everything you have to offer in a professional capacity, make another list of what is important to you in a career. Do you want to work with people? What skills do you most want to use? Is there a particular company you’ve always wanted to work for? Or a particular industry?
Make a wish list. Even if makes no sense yet, even if you don’t think a role exists in which all your favourite things can come together, it’s important to know what you want your end goal to look like and see how close you can get to that. If you’re still struggling, talking to a recruitment consultant might help.
Once you’ve figured out your end goal, do your research and find out what that end goal requires from you and work backwards. Will it need a particular qualification? That will most likely require you to carve out time to study as well as money for a course. Check out job specs for that particular role. What skills and experience are you missing? How can you obtain those? Work your way backwards to find out what roles, moves and training you will need that will eventually lead you to that end goal.
You also need to consider other factors outside of the actual job. Do I need to take a dip in salary to start lower down on a new career track? If so, how much of a dip can I afford? Is there a way to supplement my income or gain some experience alongside my current role? Do I need to give up a lot of my free time to study? How long will all of this take me to achieve? Equally, if your career development involves staying in your current industry and moving up the ranks, what moves do you need to make to get there. Can they be done in your own company or will you need to move to a bigger company that has more space to grow?
Once you’ve done your research and have a solid idea of the gaps you need to fill, it’s time to actually create the development plan. That means mapping out your journey, either with a pen and paper or on your computer. Write your own step-by-step guide for how you’re going to get from A to Z. Factor in costs, timing, and potential job moves to give you a realistic idea of how long it will take to achieve each short-term goal and make sure there is a clear line of development that will lead you to your end goal.
It’s also important to factor in where you currently are in your life. How a graduate might perceive breaking into an industry and creating a career development plan is very different to someone in the middle of their career, because the latter may need to find creative ways to blend one trajectory into another, while a graduate starting at the bottom may have a much straighter line to follow. Having said that, that graduate could very well need a brand-new career development plan in five years, which brings me to my next point.
As with most things, your career development is not a ‘one and done’ situation. Your needs and desires may change over time and your end goal could shift drastically between year one and year five of your so-called ‘five-year plan’. It’s OK to re-evaluate your career goals, in fact it’s encouraged. Everyone needs to be motivated by what they’re doing and if you’re not, maybe there’s an adjustment needed.
Alternatively, you could have reached your end goal and you’re now wondering what’s next. That’s when it’s time to start from the beginning and make another plan. Rinse, repeat and succeed.
Need a little help with that career plan? Wondering where your next job should be? Simply register your CV with us and/or create job alerts tailored to your specific career preferences. Sit back, and let us do the hard work on your behalf.
Feeling confused about your career? We’ve got everything you need to know about progression, new jobs and happiness in your career right here.
Written with contributions from the RECRUITERS team
Post-It notes photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash
To-do list photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
