It doesn’t matter if you’ve just signed the papers for your first professional job or are the CEO of a large company—a career development plan is essential.
It’s a roadmap to help reach your career goals and build a life you love.
A career development plan is the best way to keep progressing in your career and make sure you get to where you want to go.
Here’s what they’re all about and how you can build your own career development plan today.
What Is a Career Development Plan?
Call it your career development plan, strategy, roadmap, or vision—they’re all ways to describe the same thing: a plan to follow in order to achieve your career goals.
Here are some features of an effective career development plan:
- Comprehensive: It includes long-term goals (where you want to be in the future) with short-term action steps.
- Written: Until you write something down, it’s just an idea… at least in our opinion! If you want to make progress with your plan, document it thoroughly to put it to use.
- Personal: This is about you and your career goals—what you want to achieve. Let yourself dream big for your life and not be swayed by the expectations of others or perceived limitations.
- Growth-oriented: While not everyone wants to lead a seven-figure business, growth is always part of career development. Growth can be in new skills, achieving a specific lifestyle, or scaling a company.
The last thing to remember about a career development plan is that it’s action-oriented. Unlike a vision board, though also helpful, the purpose isn’t to just dream about future goals. The purpose is to achieve them through action.
Why You Need a Career Development Plan
So, why is a career development plan important?
You might already have career goals or an ideal position in mind, so what’s the benefit of developing a concrete plan?
The obvious reason is that it helps you meet your career goals. A plan will give you the drive, motivation, and tangible steps to get to where you want to be in the future.
Besides this, there are other benefits to having a plan:
- Accountability: A written, detailed plan will keep you accountable to your goals. It’s even more true if you share it with other trusted people in your life.
- Progress: A plan that outlines the steps to achieve your goals can help you track progress. For example, expanding office space is an important career step—from your first dedicated desk to growing your team to a larger private office. The progression shows how far you’ve come to achieve your goals.
- Clarity: Ambitious professionals can be overwhelmed by choice—there are so many ways to go with a career! Spending time developing a career development plan cuts through the noise and brings clarity to the specific path you should take.
If you’re a career-driven individual, mapping out a goal-oriented plan is a must. It’s what turns daydreams and lofty goals into concrete action steps.
How to Create a Career Development Plan
Building a career development plan will be unique for every professional. Only you can identify the real, tangible action steps to reach your personal goals. However, there are some basic steps all professionals can take to start developing your plan.
Here are 5 steps to put together your career development plan:
1. Identify Your Start and End Points
To know where you’re going, you need to know where you’re starting. By identifying where you are today and where you ultimately want to be, you set the parameters for your career development plan.
Use these questions to guide you as you think about your start and end points.
Starting point (where you are today):
- Are you happy in your current role? What do you like and dislike about it?
- How does your job today support work-life balance?
- What skills do you currently use? Will there be opportunities for growth? What skills do you want to develop?
- Who are the people you work with? Do you enjoy it?
- When you think of where you want to be in 5 or 10 years, is it very similar or very different from where you are now?
Endpoint (your big career dream):
- Is there a specific role you want to be in? (i.e., C-Suite leader)
- Do you want to work for yourself, work for someone, or lead a team?
- What type of company and industry do you want to work for? What will align with your values and interests?
- What type of job will help you achieve your desired lifestyle? Think about salary, hours of work, flexibility, travel, etc.
Dreaming big can help you fall back in love with your work again. By seeing the future potential, you’ll be more engaged in your current position. And once you understand the “big goal” you’re working towards, you can start reverse-engineering a plan to get there.
2. Understand the Gap
After you have the start and end points, you can understand the gap between them. This is what your career development plan will fill in so you can reach that endpoint.
This process takes your future goals, however far away they are, and reverse-engineers the process and plan to get you there.
Take a look at your gap and consider these questions:
- What skills, education, or experience do you need to reach your endpoint? Can you self-teach through an online learning platform or do you need to enroll in coursework or a program?
- Do you live somewhere where the type of job or role you want exists? Would you be willing to move?
- What are some potential barriers to achieving your goals? Some things to think about are finances (i.e., going back to school), family responsibilities, or industry trends.
3. Get Specific with SMART Goals
At this point, you’re drilling down into specific actionable steps. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based.
Use the SMART goal framework to identify steps to reach your ultimate goal. It’s helpful to break your “gap” into some smaller time periods and then identify goals within those sections.
Here are some examples:
Years 1-2
- “I will register for my accounting upskilling course in the next three months.”
- “I will set up meetings with my manager once every six months for the next two years to discuss my progress.”
Years 2-5
- “I will move to [city] to build my network where the industry is thriving and has many job opportunities.”
- “I will hire my first employees and move into a larger office space within five years.”
Years 5-10
- “I will receive a promotion to [position] with an annual salary of XYZ.”
- “My company will expand its operations into 10 cities in Arizona and neighboring states.”
Years 10+
- “I will earn the position of Chief Technology Officer in a mid-size software company that specializes in XYZ.”
As you get more granular about your goals, you cut out tasks or to-dos that suck up your time. This process helps you identify what’s important, not urgent, so you can make the most of your days to reach your goals.
4. Document and Share
After you’ve done all the brainstorming, thinking, pondering, and questioning—write it down. There’s no right or wrong way to do it, so pick a method that works best for you. Documenting your plan will give you something to look back on and keep you motivated moving forward.
An optional, though recommended, step here is to share your career development plan with someone. It might be your business partner, spouse, close friend, or mentor.
Sharing your plan will help you stay accountable for the goals you’ve identified. Depending on your relationship, you may also ask for feedback or input on your career development plan.
5. Review and Reflect
The last step is an ongoing one. Make it a point to periodically review and reflect on your career development plan. Do this regularly, perhaps at consistent intervals like each quarter or every six months to a year.
As you take time to do this, you can change and adjust your plan as needed. Your career development plan isn’t meant to be rigid and unbending—it’ll fluctuate as your life does.
There may be unexpected curveballs or, simply, your goals change! It’s okay if that happens. Just go back, review and reflect on your plan, and keep moving forward.
The best way to progress in your career is to know what you want out of it. It’s by dreaming big and setting goals for the future and then figuring out exactly how you’ll get there. An action-oriented career development plan is the best way to keep moving forward to your goals. If you’re ready to work alongside professionals who are all striving to achieve their goals together, then you need to be at The Post. Book a tour today.