Project on Career Planning
Career planning
is an ongoing process that can help you manage your learning and
development.
The career planning process has four steps:
Step 1: knowing yourself
Step 2: finding out
Step 3: making decisions
Step 4: taking action
Step
1: knowing yourself
Begin by thinking about where you are now, where you want
to be and how you’re going to get there.
Once you have thought about where you are at now and
where you want to be, you can work on getting to know your skills, interests
and values.
Begin by asking yourself the following questions:
·
Where am I at now?
·
Where do I want to be?
·
What do I want out of a job or
career?
·
What do I like to do?
·
What are my strengths?
·
What is important to me?
At the end of this step you will have a clearer idea of
your work or learning goal and your individual preferences. You can use this
information about yourself as your personal ‘wish list’ against which you can
compare all the information you gather in Step 2: finding out. Your
personal preferences are very useful for helping you choose your best option at
this point in time, which you can do in Step 3: making
decisions.
Step
2: finding out
This step is about exploring the occupations and learning
areas that interest you. Once you have some idea of your occupational
preferences you can research the specific skills and qualifications required
for those occupations.
·
Explore occupations that interest
you and ask yourself how do my skills and interests match up with these
occupations?
·
Where are the gaps?
·
What options do I have to gain
these skills or qualify for these occupations?
·
What skills do I need?
·
Where is the work?
At the end of this step you will have a list of preferred
occupations and/or learning options.
Step
3: making decisions
This step involves comparing your options, narrowing down
your choices and thinking about what suits you best at this point in
time.
Ask yourself:
·
What are my best work/training
options?
·
How do they match with my skills,
interests and values?
·
How do they fit with the current
labour market?
·
How do they fit with my current
situation and responsibilities?
·
What are the advantages and
disadvantages of each option?
·
What will help and what will hinder
me?
·
What can I do about it?
At the end of this step you will have narrowed down your
options and have more of an idea of what you need to do next to help you
achieve your goals.
Step
4: taking action
Here you plan the steps you need to take to put your plan
into action.
Use all you have learnt about your skills, interests and values together with the information you have gathered about the world of work to create your plan.
Use all you have learnt about your skills, interests and values together with the information you have gathered about the world of work to create your plan.
In organizational development (or
OD), the study of career development looks at:
- how individuals manage their careers within and between organizations and,
- how organizations structure the career progress of their members, it can also be tied into succession planning within most of the organizations.
In personal development, career
development is:
- " ... the total constellation of psychological, sociological, educational, physical, economic, and chance factors that combine to influence the nature and significance of work in the total lifespan of any given individual."
- The evolution or development of a career - informed by (1) Experience within a specific field of interest (with career, job, or task specific skills as by-product) (2) Success at each stage of development, (3) educational attainment commensurate with each incremental stage, (4) Communications, and (5) understanding of career development as a navigable process.
"... the lifelong psychological and behavioral processes as well as contextual influences shaping one’s career over the life span. As such, career development involves the person’s creation of a career pattern, decision-making style, integration of life roles, values expression, and life-role self concepts."