Strategies to boost your career development

Career management is not something that you should just talk about; you must do it if you want to delight in your work and have a successful career. And that is possible only if you plan and work to acquire new dexterities and competencies.

Your career advancement will always take place if you take initiative. Amongst other actions, you could well job shadow others to gain knowledge about different jobs. Your experience will widen tremendously if you explore lateral movements and take active part in learning and development projects. If at all you have a mentor, somebody from a department that is on your exploration list will stand you in good stead.

Successful and contented people invariably try find out whatever they seek from their work. Once their sights are set on their objectives, they formulate a line of action to accomplish them. The plan should have timelines built in for accomplishing the objectives.  If you incorporate your boss in the process, the advantages will be in your favour because there will be someone within the organisation to help you out with your career management. Remember that sans a plan, you will be directionless and have no criterion against which you can measure your progress.

The modern day workplace is ever evolving and highly demanding; and to cope with pressures that are inherent to it, you need to make a strategic career management plan. None of the employers do you any favour by hiring you. In fact, they will always attract, recruit and retain employees who provide he best value and have the potential to provide the maximum value. If that be so, you ought to regard yourself as a business with something to sell. In other words, you need to generate strategies to sell yourself in general and your value in particular. You should:

• Have a frank discussion with your manager about your career objectives and seek his assistance to jointly generate a career development plan. Remember that the most consequential opportunity to exert sway and bring to bear effect is by involving your boss in various actions or steps required to be taken in your career planning.
• Probe into different qualitative requirements related to skills and experience as pertinent to the immediate and distant future. To illustrate the point, if your aim is to be the head of the human resources department of a company, then you should have a clear picture of the qualifications without which you will not be able to reach that position. And more importantly, you will have develop interim career development plans that will contribute to the accomplishment of your ultimate career objective.
• Increase your awareness about varied career options available to you. This can be made possible if you interact with your boss periodically and also have regular meetings with your friends, both at the workplace and outside. Your aim ought to be to gather maximum information so that you are able to make sound career decisions. You should have no apprehensions in approaching people because more often than not, they would be more than willing to tell you how they moved up in their careers and offer honest advice to you on how to do so.
• Display willingness to shoulder additional responsibilities voluntarily and take on challenging tasks. One good way to do well in your career is by keeping your wits about, looking for areas that are neglected in your organisation or where there are problems and come up with a line of action to set things right. When you undertake to bring about an improvement, you will get noticed and acknowledged by your management; in the process you will also get an opportunity to improve upon your skills-set.
• Interact with the HR department regularly to find out about new career development opportunities or policies that could facilitate them. It is necessary that you make optimum use of various learning & development events and amenities offered. You should be on a proactive mode as far as improving your skills and knowledge is concerned. In this way, besides improving your career prospects, you will also make yourself indispensable and thus be in a better position to accomplish your career objectives.

It is alright to have a job, but if you create a career out of it,  you stand to generate more opportunities for being successful. Remember that a successful career happens only if you work for it. And working for it implies planning, toil and periodic reviews to ensure that you are on track.

Creating a career path

       The process of creating a career path implies plotting a course by a person for career advancement within an organisation. It entails comprehending the skills, expertise, individual qualities and experience essential for any working person to make career progress by way of promotions and raises. Such progress can also be a lateral movement. Therefore, it places upon an individual  immense responsibility to review career objectives and deliberate on what needs to be done to accomplish them. Creation of a career path is thus an inescapable constituent of your longterm career management.

In good organisations, a career path is a crucial factor in the performance development planning of an employee wherein the seniors deliberate and plan advancement avenues for an employee. The issue of performance development planning is significant because firstly it is in a written form and secondly, it is shared, tracked and periodically reviewed at different echelons. The annual performance review can also be used for creating a career path.

The career path includes an individual’s ultimate career objective and actions required to be taken to accomplish that. Drafted properly, it gives a sense of direction and purpose to the concerned individual besides providing him methods to evaluate the progress achieved at different stages. This thus, help in making midterm corrections, if required. It is not necessary that the career path be created by an organisation. As an individual and as an employee, it is your responsibility to make your own career path. How do you do that?

You can develop a career path by taking a look at your desired job or jobs in your company. Having done that, you should then chart a course through different jobs and departments. This can be undertaken with the help of your immediate boss or in conjunction with the HR department; in fact a career path arrived at in this manner will be the best.You need to acknowledge the fact that seizing any job that you have an eye on will necessitate move out from your current team to different sections altogether. And of course, a promotion at appropriate intervals is also essential for accomplishing your objectives. A mentor can be of immense help in this context.

Besides the above imperatives, there are three other actions required of you. They are:

• Formulating career objectives & deciding on aspired jobs: Coaching and mentoring may facilitate narrowing down on likely career options, however, it is your responsibility to explore them to your satisfaction. This will have to be done as an own time effort. You may also seek assistance of career professionals or carry out extensive research online for the purpose.
• Reduce your career path plan to writing. If you are working in a company where your performance appraisals are linked with career development opportunities, the career path plan will already be there in a documented form. But in most cases, you will have to make your own plan and then share it with your immediate boss or the concerned HR staff. You will need to enunciate your objectives clearly because unless you do so, accomplishing them will not be easy.
• Exercise full control over your career path plan: While help from others will be to your advantage, you need to understand than that no person other than you will be the only beneficiary of your career path plan. Your responsibilities will include taking initiatives to select a good mentor, applying for jobs that are there within your company and acquiring necessary skills to meet the qualitative requirements spelt out. It is only then that you will be able to achieve your goals. Remember that the impact of your career path will be only on you and hence the importance of being a master of it needs no emphasis. 

A thoughtful career path plan is a key factor for an employee to stick on in an organisation. That is why companies are increasingly taking the onus of developing career paths of their employees. Learning and developing activities planned by companies make it known to employees what skills are expected of them to hold higher responsibilities. Such information known, you can plan and prepare for different jobs and opportunities within your existing organisation. This is all the more important because today, no organisation will offer you a lifelong career because the focus will always be to safeguard organisational interests that could well be poles apart from your concerns. Therefore, if you understand the importance of planning your career path yourself, you will always have a roadmap to follow through out your career journey.