Career planning and development is a continuous process of learning from your experiences and moving forward in your life. It assists you in determining who you are and where you want to go in life. Consider where you want to be at the conclusion of the year. Do you enjoy the industry in which you work? What are you interested in learning more about? In order to analyze your status and goals, career planning and development is a vital procedure for continuous growth and learning. Knowing your objective is vital, but knowing how to get there is even better. If you are looking for assistance with career planning and development, here are some important insights and recommendations to keep in mind.
What is Career Planning and Development?
Career Planning
A career is defined as a sequence of jobs in a person’s life. Career planning is defined as the process of extensively planning your career goals, your abilities, and assessing your opportunities. For instance, if your career goal is to become a scientist in NASA you will have to map out a plan to get there. Career planning and development is an important part of growing professionally and in a systematic manner. In other words, it can be said that career planning is the process of determining which professional route is most suited to your personality, interests, and goals. If you currently have a job that you enjoy, you may utilize the career planning process to create short- and long-term objectives for what you want to accomplish in the next five, ten, or twenty years. You might also consider your alternatives and decide to change careers.
Career Development
Career development is an ongoing process. Once you have set certain goals for yourself you can start working on career management. Career development can help you keep track of where you see yourself in your career trajectory in order to achieve growth, sustainability, new skills, constant learning in your career, career planning, and development.
Note: Career management includes all aspects of development and planning. Make no mistake about it: you are in command of your professional and personal growth.
Objectives of Career Planning and Development
The following are the primary goals of career planning and development:
- Employees’ favorable attributes must be identified.
- To raise awareness of each employee’s uniqueness.
- Recruiting skilled personnel for the company.
- Employees should be trained in team-building skills.
- To develop appropriate coping mechanisms for dealing with disputes, emotions, and stress.
- To respect the feelings of other employees.
Steps Involved In Career Planning?
Here are a few steps that can help you in career planning and development that will help you grow in accordance with your interests and ambitions:
1. Conduct a Self-Evaluation.
The first, and sometimes hardest, step in career planning is to make an informed judgment about yourself and your goals. You must examine your personality, strengths, limitations, values, interests, abilities, aptitude, and objectives in order to do so. You can find out by making a self-evaluation list that contains the following questions:
- What are the things that keep me going?
- What are some of my pet peeves?
- What are my strong points?
- What kind of life do I want?
- What type of work-life balance am I looking for?
- Is it better for me to work in an office or outside?
- What are my weak points?
- Do I have the traits of a leader?
- Do I have the ability to be innovative and enterprising?
- Is it possible for me to bear responsibilities?
- Is it possible for me to recover from failures and setbacks?
- Is it possible for me to remain calm and attentive in difficult situations?
- Is it possible for me to relocate for the job?
2. Carry Out Career Research
Conducting career research is the next stage in your career planning and growth. After you’ve determined your interests, aptitude, and capabilities, look into several sorts of occupations that could be a good fit for you. You may do this by researching the many industries that interest you and compiling a list of the jobs that are available in each. You may then study each job individually to learn about the educational requirements, skills, training, and experience required for that position. You can learn about the work duties, the work environment, and the advancement chances accessible. You may also learn about the compensation levels and benefits of the employment. It can also assist in determining the benefits and drawbacks of that career.
3. Categorize your Career Planning and Development
You need to prioritize your skills, your interests, your flexibility, your challenges, and your expectations from the job. If you can see yourself achieving your long-term career goals in your current job then this is a part of career planning and development. Once you are done sorting out all these things you will be able to manage and analyze your career wisely.
Career Objective for a Fresher
4. Analyze Your Options for Career Planning and Development
You can start by exploring your interests, career skills, ambitions, and abilities. Try figuring out what job role will be best suited for you. Start looking for opportunities that can help you grow. Research well about the companies to find out what they are expecting from their employees so that you can curate an effective resume and application. You can start by doing internships and part-time jobs to get an idea of the work environment.
5. Analyse Your Current Status
Is your current job giving you satisfaction and peace of mind? Career planning and development does not mean mapping out your current career. It also means exploring other fields that will provide you with better opportunities.
6. Developing New Skills
This is one of the most important aspects of career planning and development, if you have a deep understanding of a particular field you should probably develop new skills that will accentuate your profile.
7. Channel Other Factors in your Career Planning and Development
An important part of career planning and development is to consider other factors which are beyond your personal preferences. Other factors may include the demands of a particular field, how comfortable you are in managing yourself with the context of that demand, does it require additional education or training, and what are the challenges.
Importance of Career Planning
Benefits of Career Planning and Development
Here are some of the vital benefits of career planning and development that one should know about:
- Career planning guarantees that there is a steady supply of promotable personnel.
- It contributes to increasing employee loyalty.
- It ensures that top management is aware of the caliber and capacity of personnel with the potential to advance.
- It can always put together a team of employees that are ready to handle any situation that arises.
- Career planning helps to prevent labor turnover.
- Every business plans for succession, with career planning as the initial stage.
- Career planning promotes the growth and development of employees.
- It inhibits seniors’ unfavorable attitudes toward subordinates’ progress.
FAQs
What is career planning and development in HRM?
Career Planning and Development is the process of selecting career goals, providing a path to those objectives, and taking personal steps to accomplish those goals.
What are the 6 steps in the career planning process?
6 Career Planning Steps are: Step 1: Investigate Your Career Options.Step 2: Carry out field research.Step 3: Determine Your Job Objective.Step 4: Establish Your Credentials and Resume.Step 5: Get Ready for a Job Search.
Step 6: Begin Looking for Work.
- Career development
- The 6-Step Career-Planning Process
By Indeed Editorial Team
Updated July 20, 2022 | Published December 12, 2019
Updated July 20, 2022
Published December 12, 2019
The Indeed Editorial Team comprises a diverse and talented team of writers, researchers and subject matter experts equipped with Indeed's data and insights to deliver useful tips to help guide your career journey.
The career-planning process allows you to identify personal strengths and interests so you can discover professional opportunities you’re likely to both enjoy and excel in. This process includes a series of simple steps and can be reused throughout your career to ensure you’re working toward goals that still satisfy you, no matter where you are in your career trajectory.
In this article, we explore common stages involved in the career-planning process and how to complete each of these six stages.
What is career planning?
Career planning is the process of discovering educational, training and professional opportunities that suit your interests, passions and goals. Before searching for jobs, you should set achievable long-term goals that identify what you want to be doing along your career path at five, 10, 15, 20 years and so on.
Then, you can set short-term goals between each stage to ensure you have clear, actionable steps you can take to reach your long-term goals. Career planning allows you to outline your goals and reevaluate them as you progress.
Related: What Is a Career Trajectory? (And How To Create One)
Steps of the career-planning process
Depending on your path, you may complete each step just once, or you may revisit the process to change direction and discover new career options. Here are the chronological stages of the career-planning process:
1. Self-exploration and assessment
You first need to understand your needs, strengths, personality, skills, talents and interests to make informed academic and career decisions. You can determine these items on your own by making a series of lists or through a variety of tests, including:
Value evaluations, which include factors such as the salary level you desire, whether you prefer frequent interactions with other people or solitude in the workplace, how much you want your work to contribute to society as a whole and how important prestige is to your work and the rest of your life.
Interest evaluations, which gather data about your likes and dislikes regarding a wide array of activities, people and objects. Many interest profilers, including the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory, match your interests with six types: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising and conventional. Then, these types are matched with the occupations that fit them best.
Personality evaluations, which often use online surveys like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. This test categorizes people into 16 personality types based on the following characteristics: Introversion or Extroversion, Sensing or Intuition, Thinking or Feeling, or Judging or Perceiving. People with some personality types do better in certain occupations than others. For example, an introvert might not enjoy working with other people all day.
Aptitude evaluations, which test your abilities and strengths. They can let you know if you need more education or training and can also help you decide if you want to spend the time, money and effort needed to start a brand-new career.
You can also consider meeting with a career counselor. A career counselor specializes in helping professionals understand elements that can influence career decisions and identify possibilities they may not have considered. A career counselor might use skill identification exercises, interest inventories, communication and learning styles, and other methods to help you understand yourself better.
Related: 12 Career Counseling Questions To Ask Your Career Counselor
2. Career research
After you determine your qualities and aptitudes, you can decide which types of careers you're interested in with research. Start with a list of roles and industries provided by your assessments or compile a list of characteristics in the work environment, responsibilities and advancement opportunities you want in your career. Using those characteristics, determine more roles and industries you may want to consider.
Start further research by gathering basic information about each of the careers on your list. Look at the general description of each profession, along with general labor market information, such as median salary, common benefits, educational and training requirements and the likelihood of being hired after meeting all the requirements.
Continue narrowing down your list of possible careers by learning what working in different fields is really like. Consider using your professional network to find people already in those roles and industries, or reach out to current professionals on career-focused social media platforms.
You can also read company reviews for specific roles to find out as much as you can about the advantages and disadvantages of the field. Reading first-person perspectives could be invaluable when it is time to make a choice.
Read more: How To Research Career Paths in 8 Steps (With Benefits)
3. Career exploration and experimentation
After you have narrowed down your list of possible careers, find ways to experience each career in person. Here are some ways you can get a first-hand look at what a role entails:
Informational interviews: Consider asking a professional in your desired field to sit down with you to answer questions. You can discover the education, training, entry-level roles and other aspects they followed along their career path. An informational interview can also help you build your professional network within your intended industry, which may help your job search process in the future.
Job shadowing: This activity involves spending a day, a week or another short period observing a professional on the job. You may accompany them to meetings or watch them demonstrate how they complete their typical daily work. You can also ask them questions throughout your time with them to better understand their career path.
Volunteering: Some organizations may allow you to volunteer for tasks that your ideal role would handle to gain more hands-on experience. This can also help you determine whether you can enjoy working in that role, industry or type of workplace.
Internships: Consider an internship for more direct field experience. These opportunities are likely to give tasks more relevant to your intended role.
Part-time work: Part-time versions of many jobs may be available with fewer entry-level requirements. You can find them in specific companies that you might consider working for and in assistant-type roles that directly interact with your intended role.
Find a mentor in the industry: Watching an experienced mentor and listening to them talk about the realities of a career can be very informative. You can consider applying their career path choices to your own planning to identify steps that may also work for you.
Courses: If you pursue any form of higher education, consider choosing courses related to possible career choices. These classes can provide you foundational information and training through projects and essays, which can help you understand some of the basics of a career.
4. Decision-making and career selection
Weigh the advantages and disadvantages of all of your options. You will need to consider many factors, including the possible balances between pay and enjoyment, the pros and cons of relocation, and the work-life balance.
Go over all of your previous research as well as any related experiences very carefully, and organize them by preference from highest to lowest. This strategy helps you rank certain factors and roles over others to identify your top choice. Consider also identifying alternative yet similar options should your desires change as you progress or your job search does not lead to that role.
Read more: How To Choose the Career Path That's Right for You
5. Final planning and action
Gather all the information you have learned and determine an action plan. This plan should include background information, such as your employment history, education, level of training, volunteer and other unpaid experience. It should also include your professional licenses or certifications, the results of the self-evaluations mentioned in the first section, and career counselor advice you have received.
Create detailed lists of short- and long-term goals you will need to achieve before you reach your final career goal. These lists should include all of the occupational, educational and training goals required to pursue your chosen career path. You should also consider the barriers to reaching those goals and how you plan to overcome them. These barriers could be financial, educational, vocational or personal, such as the cost of college, family obligations, or the need for tools and supplies for your chosen career.
Consider writing out each step for your intended career path, including the steps you’ve already taken to see the progress you’ve already made. You can also do this for your alternative options to ensure you are prepared to follow them should your ideal option not work out.
Related: How To Choose a Career Based on Your Interests
6. Job search and acceptance
Use your career plan to begin your job search. Identify specific roles and companies you’re interested in applying to, and compare those preferences and requirements to your career plan. See if there are steps you still need to take or if you’re qualified to apply.
You can also use your goal-setting strategy and career plan to write an effective cover letter that demonstrates your passion for the role, field and employer. You can use your career plan to identify the steps you’ve taken on your path thus far and highlight your goal-setting skills and dedication. You can also apply these items during the interview process to prove your interest and qualification to prospective employers.
If you receive a job offer, determine whether the salary, benefits, location, work-life balance and responsibilities match your self-assessment and action plan.
Related: Try SMART Goals To Grow Your Career In 2022
In this video, you’ll learn how to set SMART goals, the key to not just dreaming but accomplishing what you set your mind to.