Recently, there has been more and more talk about conscious career management. Often the first step is to prepare a career plan. This is a tool that helps you assess where you are in the professional field and where you want to be. We learned first, and how and why people write a career plan.
1. What is happening now?
First, it was necessary to describe in detail what is happening: describe what kind of work you do, what position you hold, and how you feel and think about it.
Writing it down is not as easy as it seems. I poured tea several times, found important and urgent things, went through a couple of drawers in the closet, took a meditative pose, but I couldn’t start. Although I am a journalist and texts are my bread, it was very difficult to write about myself. It seemed to me that everything I write is primitive, stupid and funny – in general, it looks like a first-grader’s essay about how the summer went.
In the end, I decided that I would write everything in a flow, without analyzing how beautiful and correct my words were. After a couple of lines about myself, things started to go – it took me 30 minutes and two sheets. I noticed that emotions began to spill out onto the paper: the monotonous enumeration of jobs was suddenly replaced by complaints about the authorities, then anger at myself for mistakes, then again complaints.
As the coach later explained to me, this is how emotions spill out and this is good: having blown off steam, it is easier to soberly assess the situation. Resentment against colleagues and bosses, shame for actions and mistakes, repressed anger and irritation – all this prevents you from expressing yourself in the profession. Ideally, it is better to discuss all these negative emotions with a psychologist or counselor to say goodbye to them once and for all .
What’s the use? After describing my labor exploits, new ideas began to come to my mind that could be changed – I fixed them in the margins, leaving them to think through.
2. What can I do?
You need to conduct an “audit” of your abilities to understand what kind of job could suit your skills.
To put it simply, I had to describe everything that I can do. The first thing that came to mind was work skills: writing, editing, interviewing, communicating, translating into English, and so on. The next step was to ask others about what they thought I was doing well. The answers warmed my soul: many noticed things that I did not pay attention to. For example, they said that I perfectly pack gifts and put everything on the shelves in the literal and figurative sense, I can motivate and support. I even thought that I could become a good decorator or trainer.
3. What do people think of me at work?
To find out the answer to this question, it was necessary to ask for feedback from your manager (ideally, also from related and higher managers).
For me, this turned out to be the most difficult part of the plan. Even though I coped with my duties and had a good relationship with the management, I was very afraid to hear something unpleasant. As a result, the coach convinced me with the phrase that if you yourself do not ask for an opinion about yourself, then you will express this opinion in a form or situation that may be unpleasant for you. Forewarned is forearmed!
It seems to me that I scared my manager with a request, because in the small company where I worked, it was not customary to discuss such things without a reason. But, if you treat such conversations correctly, you can learn about development zones, about what separates you from promotion .
This advice soon came in handy for me on another project. After the first month of cooperation, she asked for feedback on her work (now it has become psychologically easier to do this) and received good feedback. Just a week after that, I made several mistakes that led to a big scandal. But the earlier conversation about me allowed me to maintain self-esteem, not to become limp from criticism, and to calmly perceive the irritation of the boss at that moment.
4. What do I dream about?
This paragraph with a pleasant name is actually not so simple either.
“It’s hard for adults to dream! our heroine says. – Before you have time to think about what you want, you immediately hear an inner voice with a number of arguments why you don’t need it or why it’s impossible. In the end, I did not come up with my ideal job, but described how I would like to feel at work .
In theory, at this stage, you can compare “what I can do” and “what are my weaknesses” with “what I want” . This will allow you to see where you already fit in with your dream job and where you don’t yet.
By the way, another option to find out which professional direction is closer to you is to pass a detailed serious test “Vocational Guidance” , developed by scientists from Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov. It examines your personal and professional characteristics and provides answers to the questions:
- What business roles suit you? (for example, those related to communications or service, technology or analytics, and so on)
- What career vector and what type of career is closer to you?
- What qualities you should strengthen?
- What careers are right for you?
Concrete steps towards implementation:
The first four points of a career plan allow you to form your career goals. And the second part of the plan deals with steps towards these goals.
- Be aware of the situation in the labor market
Even if you are not looking for a job, career experts advise you to always keep your finger on the pulse and monitor vacancies, salaries, specialized sites and groups.
- Learn new things
After setting goals and monitoring vacancies, it may turn out that for a dream job, you still need to grow up: update your qualifications & gain new knowledge. Do not waste time – the faster you do it, the faster you will get closer to the goal.
- Expand your circle of acquaintances
Networking is a popular tool for development and job search. The coach recommended that I make lists of experts in my industry who I would like to meet, add them as friends on social networks, track events with their participation, look for intersection points.
- Rest
I often neglected the last point of the plan. But the one who fully rests and recuperates works well. Therefore, this point also had to be fixed in order not to forget to rest.
What is the result?
Writing a career plan is a lot of work. But even more effort is required to fulfill its points.
It was hard for me to realize my weaknesses. For example, my networking was lame. But I was convinced that I was thinking right about additional education, and I entered the digital marketing course.
In general, working on a career plan helped me see that I was too focused on my daily routine and paid little attention to strategy – I decided to communicate more with colleagues to be aware of business priorities, to learn more about what was happening in the market. Working on a plan helps you get to know yourself better, expand your boundaries and allow yourself to dream. I want to return to this document to appreciate how my views are changing. And ideally, coaches recommend making a career plan every year.
Also read : Questions to ask yourself to reach a new career level.
Professional opinion
The career plan is used by many career consultants and coaches, and its structure may vary from author to author. But in any case, its purpose is to help you fix your goals and outline steps towards them. The main “secret” of a career plan is the same as most written self-development practices: when you write, you analyze your thoughts and feelings, clearly formulate goals for yourself and fixate on them .
“A career plan is not just a list of tasks that need to be implemented, it is a deep dive into your goals and understanding of your needs for many years to come. There is no understanding of one’s goals – there is no awareness of the choice: the risk of choosing the wrong workplace, difficulties in finding employment, conflicts with the employer, and professional burnout increases. The plan helps to capture key goals and values, link them to the situation in the labor market and find the right tools to quickly develop your career. Conscious career planning can significantly reduce anxiety about your career prospects, help you make quick and accurate decisions in a situation of change, take initiative and create new opportunities for yourself.”
Those who want to follow the example of the heroine of this article to make a career plan, following the same steps as her, should treat some of the steps with caution: they can be quite painful. And if you are currently working, you should look for ways to develop your career in your current position. Sometimes the possibilities are closer than we think.
Asking yourself questions and analyzing your experience is always useful. You need to understand that for practical use it is necessary to have a high level of reflection, because it is very difficult to independently get out of the system in which you are located and look at yourself from the outside.
As for the request for an external assessment – what colleagues and managers think about you, I would recommend that you treat this step with great caution. First, you need to be mature enough to adequately accept feedback if it turns out to be not too pleasant. Secondly, the person to whom you make such a request must enjoy your respect, have authority, be an experienced, reflective and mature person enough to give you constructive, developing feedback, and not work out your own complexes and projections on you. You can get feedback from a toxic person that will only cause harm.
If you work in a large modern company, ask your HR department if it is possible to draw up an individual development plan. Perhaps career and professional change options are closer than you think. Good employers are interested in keeping valuable employees in the company and try to build for them such career trajectories that would be interesting for both the employee and the company. Including helping with additional education, including in cross-functional teams, in projects consisting of specialists from different departments, working together on a common task.”
Also read : How work in a team?
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