Dear Constance
I like that you have that drive to create a game plan for yourself and the desire to see it through. In the end, this is what will set you apart from the others. You might want to create a Personal Development Plan before you meet with a career coach, then you would have more material to work with. A Personal Development Plan is like the career development plan that your human resource development officer might create for you at work – except that in this case, you are your own HRD officer.
Look inside. Look at your work history, your educational background, and your extra-curricular activities.
What are you good at? Note the things you know you’re good at and the things you’ve earned recognition for. Note those projects where you feel you’ve been able to give your best and where you felt the most energized. What do these tell you about your strengths? You might want to go over your past job evaluations. Draw up a list of your strong areas in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
What tasks suggest that this is “not you?” Take a look at tasks you have difficulty with, things you’d rather not do, things people would rather not assign to you.
Look around you. Go over your strengths and see where opportunities are for those with your skills and talents. Look at the online job forums and the classifieds here and abroad. Check out the business sections of your daily paper. Research on the industries that interest you and see what opportunities you could take advantage of. Take a look also at opportunities that seem to be coming your way because people have heard that you’re good at this or that task.
Do any of your weaknesses affect those opportunities? Are there factors not related to your skills and experience that prevent you from taking advantage of these opportunities – like you live far, you can’t work late, etc? What can you do to address these?
What transferable skills and knowledge do you have and should you train for?
Transferable skills and knowledge are those that you could use in any job and in any organization and often, they are the plus factor that make employers give you a second look in addition to whatever technical expertise you might have. Some of these skills are:
- Communication. Are you good at listening to others and expressing yourself?
- Presentation. Can you stand before a group of people and present ideas in a clear, engaging way?
- Group facilitation. Can you manage a meeting, make sure everyone gets to express their thoughts, recap, and make sure that meeting objectives are met?
- Negotiation. Can you put forward your own thoughts and those of others that differ and come to a happy consensus?
- Project management. Can you organize and supervise a group given limited resources and network with people from different units or organizations to make sure that a project is successfully completed?
- Problem-solving and decision-making. Are you able to pinpoint the real causes of problems, develop action plans and plan for contingencies?
- Leadership. Leadership skills have been generally defined as planning, leading (yes, it sounds redundant), organizing, and controlling. Do people want to join the teams you lead? Do they feel that they have something to contribute when they are with you, and that you value their contribution? Are you able to assign the right tasks to the right people? Are you able to energize and mobilize people towards the group’s goals?
Where can you add value and how? It might be helpful to ask, “Where do you see yourself in 5, 10, 15, or 20 years?” Some people answer in terms of things they might own at certain milestones in their career - a car, a condo, a house, travel, etc. These, however, are more the result of doing what you do best in the proper environment, for clients who will most appreciate it. So take a look at that.
Where can you add value? Where will you be most appreciated? Where will you stand out? If you feel you do not stand out now and that you are just one of the millions of workers in the global workplace, what should you do now or in the next 6-12 months that will make people sit up and say, “Hey, this person will help me make unit, my department, my organization more successful. I want this person here in my team!”
Take action. You could also rank your skills, knowledge, and attitudes from your strongest to weakest and see where they match up with what is required in the industry, job or career you would like to pursue. From there you could prepare a plan. Are there job opportunities you could take advantage of now? If not, do you need further education? Do you need more relevant experience? When are you going to do these? Break your plan up into little tasks you could do today, in a week, in a month.
A few things to think about when making your personal development plan:
- Everyone has a contribution to make. Find out what yours is.
- You always are a work in progress. As you grow, notice and tend to those areas that need more nurturing.
- You can’t prepare for everything, but luck favors the well-prepared.
And from hockey great Wayne Gretzky: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
All the best, |
