Meaning & significance of career planning

Career planning is a sort of conduit that connects your present with your future. If there is no linkage between the two, you will not be able to negotiate the vast expanse that lies between them and resultantly, you will become directionless and insecure. It can be of great benefit, irrespective of the fact whether you are in a job and like or hate the same; or likely to take up one. Every person should take some time off from the daily tight schedule of work and ponder on matters related to the development of one’s career.  

You must visualise your career plan from two perspectives – something that is relevant for the immediate future, say the ensuing one to five years and something for the distant future, say five years hence and beyond. Some fundamental guidelines for both are enumerated in the succeeding paragraphs.

Planning for the immediate future

Though the duration of the focus could be anything up to five years, it is all dependent upon an individual. The vital feature of any planning for the immediate future is creating objectives that are possible to be attained in the short term. It is necessary that you also liberate yourself of all mental barricades that could be highly personal like lethargy and demotivation; a tendency to defer actions and decisions; any compulsion to join a family business; and a pressure to follow a specific pursuit or shun a particular career path.

It should be appreciated that planning and deciding on a career is a very significant life activity and hence you should not tire yourself unnecessarily so that at appropriate times, you can make crucial decisions and exercise correct options. You must also appreciate that the entire process and procedure of career planning is constantly undergoing a change and hence calls for a deliberate and measured effort to:

· Evaluate your current and future lifestyle: You will need to determine if you are happy with your routine and everyday life or not; and whether you need to alter it or not. If you are clear about what you seek vis-à-vis your lifestyle, you should identify issues that are its fundamental characteristics. The vital question therefore is, “Does your present career path facilitate leading the lifestyle that you seek. 

· Scrutinise your fervours: You must contemplate on moments when you feel fervent the most the times and situations in which you feel most spirited, most busy and appointed. It is then that you should scrutinise if a common profile of the situations can be developed or not. You must also catalogue your passions and whether they surface while working or not.

· Examine your strongpoints and weak-points: For a moment, you should wear the hat of your management and then view yourself from his standpoint. You will be able to identify your strongpoints and weak-points. It is necessary that you reflect in terms of your qualifications, expertise, knowledge practical exposure and own individualities. 

·  Evaluate what success means to you:  Everybody has a personal definition of success and what it implies. Is it money, authority, control and satisfaction?

·  Assess you personality: There are basically two forms of a personality – introvert and extrovert. Which category do you fall in? Are you a thinking person or do you prefer being on the ground working? Are you averse to change or do you feel at ease in a state of flux? Do you prefer static jobs or action jobs?

·  Analyse the job of your dreams: You should think quietly and come up with an idea of what a job that you have inspired for is all about. It is necessary that you do this exercise sans any downbeat influences and look within for ideas within to identify alternative options, should you discern current arrangements not favourable. 

·  Probe your present state of affairs: Unless you are clear about where you are at the moment, you cannot undertake any planning. Therefore you should probe your conditions and identify where precisely you are; all your future plans have to be with reference to it.  

Having done the above, you should next proceed to envision yourself and the shape of your career over the ensuing couple of years. When the process of envisioning is complete and the mental image is up to your satisfaction, you should get on to crafting a plan to accomplish your objectives. This would entail the following:

· Deciding on the next move and narrowing down your focus on one or two career choices.

· Researching various aspects of a career to understand its nuances well.

· Identifying qualifications that you would require to step on to the next higher level or execute a career change and take necessary action for acquiring them in an appropriate timeframe.

Planning for the distant future

Career planning that extends beyond five years from now will entail a wider and more comprehensive groundwork and guiding principles. Due to environmental demands and technological advancements, everything about practically every career is being subjected to change, so much so that even expertise and skills sought after today may become redundant a couple of years hence.

In the light of the above, career planning for the distant future ought to focus more on the recognition and improvement of core skills that companies will regard. Concurrently, personal and career objectives should also be upgraded. Actions should thus be initiated for the acquisition and development of core workplace competencies; the focus should invariably be, amongst others on communication skills, crisis management and lessons on teamwork. You should also make efforts to identify new career and job tendencies so that you are better geared to face the challenges of change. This will be possible when you remain active while planning for the immediate future.

Planning for the long term implies understanding your career outlooks and concerns; being clear about what a career change involves and knowing more about different careers; knowing in detail additional qualifications that you need to acquire and how; the manner in which you should be doing self-promotion. If you are able to find a career to which you are adapted by temperament and outlook; and then work hard, there is no way that you will not succeed in it. And the best part of this is that once you find the right career, hard work will cease to be so. Your career will be a pleasure ride.