Professional Development Planning: Achieving Your Career Goals
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Gone are the days when you could join a single company and have an assured, lifelong career there. Market conditions have changed, legacy jobs are disappearing, and job hopping is the new normal. You’re expected to take a much more active role in the direction – and development – of your own career, much like an entrepreneur building up their own business.
Crafting a professional development plan is an excellent way to stay grounded, navigate the confusing labyrinth that’s the job market, and build a successful career for yourself. Brittani Sadeshows you how to create a professional development plan to achieve your career goals:
What is a professional development plan (PDP)?
A PDP, according to an Ingram’s expert, is a framework for identifying goals, resources, activities, and learning opportunities for growth. It’s a document that helps you chart a course toward your career objectives, essentially, and details the steps you need to take to get there. Creating a PDP is straightforward – you can write down a PDP, type it out, use a spreadsheet, or use an app to list your objectives.
What are your career goals?
Before you create a PDP, you need to define your career goals. If you haven’t started your career yet, getting to know yourself through personality and assessment tests is a good idea. If you have a career, you need to identify where you stand and the position you wish to achieve – whether that’s a promotion, a position elsewhere, or both. When you know what you want, you can set goals to get there. If you need some inspiration, Coursera offers examples of professional development goals you could reference.
Create SMART goals
Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals are the heart of a good PDP. By their very nature, SMART goals can be organized by time, which makes it easy for you to jot them down and track your progress toward them. It’s important to acknowledge where you need to grow, without beating yourself up about it. Everyone is improving, and the same goes for you.
Figure out growth strategies and find resources to reach your goals
Your growth strategy is the path you wish to take to reach your goal, including the resources you have at your disposal. For instance, if you’d like a promotion, you may need more experience, skills, exposure, and, possibly, an education. To do that, you could ask for help from your employer, attend workshops, study in your free time, job shadow colleagues, go back to school, and ask for extra work responsibilities.
Measure your progress
Measuring your progress is essential to success. You need to ensure you’re reaching your goals on time, short-term and long-term. If you’re falling short, you should ensure your goals are still realistic and relevant. Next, you may need to revisit your strategy and make changes to it to make it more optimal. Finally, you may need to find extra or better-quality resources, too.
Start over periodically
PDP is cyclical, meaning you should go back to the drawing board every once in a while – ideally every few months. Your career goals will change as market conditions change or you change as a person. Most people change careers at least once in their lifetime, meaning you will need to remake your PDP to match. Furthermore, building a PDP is a skill – like with any other skill, you’ll get better at it with practice and time.
Your CV has more weight than you might think
Besides a PDP, your CV may arguably be the most potent weapon in your arsenal. Learning how to create a stellar and professional-looking CV is an essential skill to have and will help you get a foot in the door in many places. Your CV should showcase your academic background, career experience, and skills. You can use a free online CV builder to make it all easier. With a CV builder, most of the work is done for you – you choose from a library of professionally-designed templates, adding in your own copy, photos, colors, and images.
Earning an online degree is a convenient way to advance your career
Last, but not least, is your education. It never hurts to learn more and, in many cases, it’s a prerequisite to getting the best jobs. For example, take a look at this education degree: It teaches instructional practice and learner development, along with in-depth knowledge of particular subjects, and puts you on the road to becoming a highly sought-after teacher. If you pick an online degree program, you could work full-time while still keeping up with your studies.
Conclusion
Learning how to create a PDP is a skill worth having, just like knowing how to write a resume, and will help you get far in life. A good professional development plan (PDP) can help you identify actionable career goals, whether that’s gaining more experience or going back to school, and give you the clarity you need to move forward with confidence.
Brittani Sade helps you develop professionally and personally, whether that’s through sharing success stories, community meetups where you can hobnob with successful women, or educational content via her blog.