Career Planning: the Right Way

Career planning is a lifelong process. You must have a career plan every step of the way from your first job and first promotion to your final pinnacle of success at the top of the corporate ladder. Each step up the corporate ladder must have the right plan, which can then be translated into the right actions and evaluated in the right manner.

When all these aspects of career planning fall into place, you will enjoy a rewarding and fulfilling career in the personal and professional sense. The financial rewards are often just the scrumptious icing on the heavenly cake. How then do you go about making the best career plan for yourself?

Four Essential Steps:

The career planning process involves four essential steps with several sub-steps in between. We suggest hiring a career development professional who will provide expert guidance on the process, thus, resulting in an excellent career plan suited for your present and future needs and wants.

Even with a career development professional on your side, however, you should still pour the necessary time, effort and energy into the career planning process. Keep in mind that it is your career at stake, not theirs.

The four steps and their brief explanation are as follows:

• Gather information about yourself. List down your interests and hobbies, skills and aptitudes, desired values and roles, preferred working environment and career direction, as well as your present circumstances, among others. You are basically performing a SWOT analysis of yourself, which will make it easier to pinpoint your possible options in careers.

• Explore the occupations suitable for your personality, preferences and aptitudes. This is the part of the career planning process where you must research on various industries and companies, engage in part-time or volunteer work to test the waters, and conduct informational interviews of the successful people in the industry if possible.

• Find a match in terms of occupation and career. You should identify, evaluate and explore your alternatives before making the final draft of your career plan. Be sure to plan for both a short-term and long-term options.

• Put your plan into action. This is the most exciting part of the career planning process for obvious reasons. You will apply for jobs, go for interviews and hopefully, get hired for your dream job.

Tips to Make the Career Planning Process Productive:

The steps are relatively easy but you should prepare to work hard on coming up with a viable plan for your career. Again, the career development professional can help you in this matter.

You are also well advised to remember the following tips during the career planning process:

• Maintain honest, open and candid lines of communication with your Career Development professional. The SWOT self-analysis may be too honest but you will be surprised at the things you will discover about who you are now and where you want to be in the future.

• Be an active participant during the career planning process. You will put your plan into action so it is only logical that you know exactly what, when and why you are doing the things you will be doing.

Indeed, the Career Planning Process is for your own good so become involved in it!

Career Illuminator - About Author:
Career Illuminators’s career counselors have given career satisfaction advice to hundreds of people, helping each of them Find A Career that inspires them.We provide the tools for achieving career satisfaction, Career Management, career planning and personal development. Please visit out website for more information: www.careerilluminators.com

Article Source:
http://www.articleside.com/career-articles/career-planning-the-right-way.htm

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