Career Planning
Identification of the strengths and weakness of an individual is the starting point for career planning. The personal strategy should be designed to utilize strengths and overcome weakness in order to take advantages of career opportunities. Although there are different approaches to career development, it is considered here as a process of developing a personal strategy that is conceptually similar to an organization strategy.
Career Planning Stage 1
Preparation of a Personal Profile:
One of the most difficult tasks is gaining insight into oneself, yet this is an essential first step in developing a career strategy. Managers should ask themselves: Am I an introvert or an extrovert? What are my attitudes toward time, achievement work, material things, and change? The answers to these and similar questions and a clarification of values will help in determining the direction of the professional career.
Career Planning Stage 2
Development of long-range personal and professional goals:
No airplane would take off without a flight plan including a destination. Yet how clear are managers about the direction of their lives? People often resist career planning because it involves making decisions. By choosing one goal, a person gives up opportunities to pursue others; if an individual studies to become a lawyer, she or he usually cannot become a doctor at the same time. Managers also resist goal setting because uncertainties in the environment cause concern about making commitments. Furthermore, there is the fear of failing to achieve goals, because the non-achievement of objectives is a blow to one’s ego.
But by understanding the factors that inhibit goal setting, one can take steps to increase commitment. First, when the setting of performance goals becomes a part of the appraisal process, identifying career goals is easier. Moreover, one does not set career goals all at once. Rather, goal setting is a continuing process that allows flexibility; professional goals can be revised in the light of changing circumstances. Another factor that reduces resistance to goal setting is the integration of long-term aims with the more immediate requirement for action. For example, the aim of becoming a doctor makes it easier to study boring subjects that are necessary for the medical degree.
How far in advance should one plan? It states that planning should cover a period of time necessary for the fulfillment of commitments involved in the decision made today. Therefore, the time frame for career planning will differ with the circumstances. For example, if a person wants to become a professor, it is necessary to plan for university studies of time span is much shorter. At any rate, the long-term aim has to be translated into short-term objectives. Before this is done, however, it is necessary to make a careful assessment of the external environment, including its threats and opportunities.
Career Planning Stage 3
Analysis of personal strengths and weakness:
For successful career planning, the environmental opportunities and threats must be matched with the strengths and weakness of individuals. Capabilities may be categorized as technical, human, conceptual, or design. The relative importance of these skills differs for the various positions in the organizational hierarchy, with technical skills being very important on the supervisory level, conceptual skills being crucial for top managers, and human skills being important at all levels.
Some issues - career planning are as follows:

Global competitive pressures, IT breakthroughs, heightened customer expectations and other, sometimes discontinuous, events are transforming organisations and the nature of the employment contract.

Entrants to the labour market can no longer expect to have a stable career in the same organisation for all their working lives. Instead it is becoming much more common for individuals to experience a number of organisations and a number of ways of working. Against this background it has never been more important to manage one's own career.

From an organisational perspective, helping to manage the careers of others is a key aspect of personnel and development work. In doing so the personnel and development professional has to consider and balance:

Aspirations and expectations of individual employees, who are increasingly aware both of their marketability and their vulnerability to market forces and therefore conscious of the need to acquire and maintain a portfolio of transferable capabilities. The organisation's need to secure its skills base, and develop people's potential and commitment, in the face of global competition for knowledge workers and scarce managerial talent.
This Standard looks at the psychological and sociological factors that influence employee thinking about careers, and the strategic, managerial and operational issues associated with career management and development within organisations. It aims to help practitioners acquire an understanding of careers and career management; and develop the skills needed to manage their own career and the careers of others.

Personal Career Planning

Career planning is not an activity that should be done once -- in high school or college -- and then left behind as we move forward in our jobs and careers. Rather, career planning is an activity that is best done on a regular basis -- especially given the data that the average worker will change careers (not jobs) multiple times over his or her lifetime. And it's never too soon or too late to start your career planning.

Career planning should be a rewarding and positive experience.

Here, then, are tips to help you achieve successful career planning.

1. Make Career Planning an Annual Event
By making career planning an annual event, you will feel more secure in your career choice and direction -- and you'll be better prepared for the many uncertainties and difficulties that lie ahead in all of our jobs and career.

2. Map Your Path Since Last Career Planning
One of your first activities whenever you take on career planning is spending time mapping out your job and career path since the last time you did any sort of career planning. While you should not dwell on your past, taking the time to review and reflect on the path -- whether straight and narrow or one filled with any curves and dead-ends -- will help you plan for the future.

Once you've mapped your past, take the time to reflect on your course -- and note why it looks the way it does. Are you happy with your path? Could you have done things better? What might you have done differently? What can you do differently in the future?

3. Reflect on Your Likes and Dislikes, Needs and Wants
Change is a factor of life; everybody changes, as do our likes and dislikes. Something we loved doing two years ago may now give us displeasure. So always take time to reflect on the things in your life -- not just in your job -- that you feel most strongly about.

Make a two-column list of your major likes and dislikes. Then use this list to examine your current job and career path. If your job and career still fall mostly in the like column, then you know you are still on the right path; however, if your job activities fall mostly in the dislike column, now is the time to begin examining new jobs and new careers.

Finally, take the time to really think about what it is you want or need from your work, from your career. Are you looking to make a difference in the world? To be famous? To become financially independent? To effect change? Take the time to understand the motives that drive your sense of success and happiness.

4. Examine Your Pastimes and Hobbies
Career planning provides a great time to also examine the activities you like doing when you're not working. It may sound a bit odd, to examine non-work activities when doing career planning, but it's not. Many times your hobbies and leisurely pursuits can give you great insight into future career paths.

5. Make Note of Your Past Accomplishments
Most people don't keep a very good record of work accomplishments and then struggle with creating a powerful resume when it's time to search for a new job. Making note of your past accomplishments -- keeping a record of them -- is not only useful for building your resume, it's also useful for career planning.

6. Look Beyond Your Current Job for Transferable Skills
Some workers get so wrapped up in their job titles that they don't see any other career possibilities for themselves. Every job requires a certain set of skills, and it's much better to categorize yourself in terms of these skill sets than be so myopic as to focus just on job titles.

7. Research Further Career/Job Advancement Opportunities
One of the really fun outcomes of career planning is picturing yourself in the future. Where will you be in a year? In five years? A key component to developing multiple scenarios of that future is researching career paths.

Of course, if you're in what you consider a dead-end job, this activity becomes even more essential to you, but all job-seekers should take the time to research various career paths -- and then develop scenarios for seeing one or more of these visions become reality. Look within your current employer and current career field, but again, as with all aspects of career planning, do not be afraid to look beyond to other possible careers.

Final Thoughts on Career Planning
Don't wait too long between career planning sessions. Career planning can have multiple benefits, from goal-setting to career change, to a more successful life. Once you begin regularly reviewing and planning your career using the tips provided in this article, you'll find yourself better prepared for whatever lies ahead in your career -- and in your life.

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