Have a career development plan

You may be just staring your career or have already been some years into it. Whatever be the case, it is important for you to have a line of action up your sleeves to affect development of your career.

The career journey is full of ups and downs on it, making it a bumpy ride at some time or the other. A career development plan helps you negotiate the rough patches and keep your forward move going. Idyllically, you should have one from the time you take your first step on this journey. Some fundamental characteristics of a career development plan are:

·   It gives you direction:   If you intend going on a trek, wouldn’t you need a map to guide you en route? Sans a map, you are likely to lose your way and reach a point other than the one you had set out for. And when you realize that, you are already mired in an awkward situation. In actual fact, you would decide on a job that meets your requirements, apply for it, prepare for various formalities and accept it, if you make the grade.

·   It is not sacrosanct: You should remember that the career development process is not sacrosanct. As years roll by, your career path will also pass through different terrains and be subjected to alterations. It does not suggest that if you formulate a line of action in the first year of your career, it will remain applicable throughout your working span. A career development plan is intended to guide you and help you out if you get bogged down. It also serves as a beacon to indicate the final destination of your journey.

·   It has to be flexible:  There are a horde of factors that will prompt you to change your plan. The progress that you make in your career also tends to change bearing. And at the point of such a change, you will require to be flexible and fine-tune yourself to connect with the new environment. In case you fail to put up with the changes, the perplexing situation that you will be in will cause you to either stagnate or collapse. 

·   It may need assistance:  The world at large and everything in it, including the environment we live in is being subjected to very speedy alterations. Under such conditions, creating a career development plan is not a very easy affair; and hence soliciting assistance from an expert to devise one for you should not be a matter of hesitation. He would be able to visualize everything that you seek to achieve, join them in concert and put together an appropriate plan for you to attain them.

·   It calls for involvement:  But there is absolutely nothing off beam if you formulate a career development plan yourself. If you are clear what you seek to achieve in your career and life; and also are relatively unambiguous about the means to do so, you should take the weight off your feet and blueprint your map out. You need to imagine your start-point, contemplate on various efforts that you will need to launch to move ahead and decide on the action that you will specifically take to ensure fructification of your aspirations.

·   It has to be realistic:  There are wide gaps between the real and virtual world. A career plan facilitates bridging such gaps. But having one that caters to each and every rough patch on your career journey will not be possible because of your inability to visualize them. Hence, if you genuinely aspire to stand out in your life and career, you have to be pragmatic and formulate an equally pragmatic career development plan.

When a child steps out of home in the morning, he knows that it is his school where he is heading for. Likewise, when you do so, you know that you are going to your place of work. But does the child know where would he be ten years down the line? Similarly, do you know where your career is heading for? You should walk a path that holds personal significance for you. And if you get stuck en route, there is nothing wrong in asking for direction. You need to build up a career development plan and make an itinerary of sorts so that you land up in a position or appointment that you have always aspired for.