If you prefer visual proof of success, a tangible career-progression plan could be perfect for ensuring you stay on track professionally.
Having a career-progression plan is about more than just answering the typical question ‘where do I want to be in five or 10 years?’ It is a visual representation of your goals, your resources and how you intend to get there.
But knowing where to start can be complicated, as you might not even have a solidified career route in your mind and that’s alright. It takes time and experience to figure it all out, which is where a written plan can be useful. Having an actual, tangible map of your goals can help you understand where you want to be in the future.
So, here are some handy tips and tricks for creating the perfect (as in perfect for you) career-progression plan.
Know the benefits
Before you get started on your plan, it can be helpful to understand the benefits of doing so. From increased motivation, skill enhancement and network building, to improved income, better work-life balance and career advancement, the benefits to mapping out your professional ambitions are many and various.
That being said, you might find it makes more sense to focus on a few key areas, for example while you may reap all the benefits of a career-progression plan, it’s no harm to isolate the ones that you are primarily interested in.
Basically, if your ambition is to become more financially secure and potentially take on more workplace responsibility, then it just makes sense that you would include a route to promotion in your plan, ahead of focusing on work-life balance. That’s not to say that you can’t plan to achieve more than one thing, it just helps to narrow down what you want in order to make it more attainable.
Plan for all seasons
A solid career-progression plan should take into account the potential longevity of a career, but also its potential to be short lived. With that in mind, employees should map out plans for the short-term, mid-term and long-term, so regardless of how long you remain at a company, you are working towards realistic and achievable goals.
Short-term plans can include skill development, learning how to use new technologies and taking on additional responsibilities. Because they exist in a smaller space, short-term plans can help you track early wins and add to a repertoire of capabilities that will help you achieve more down the line.
Though it sounds like a longer time than you would think, mid-term goals usually span five to ten years. Employees often use this time to further develop their skills via third-level education or to reach a career milestone, for example a promotion with benefits such as higher compensation, a stronger title and more rewarding work. Some may even use the time to establish their own brand or business and get it off the ground.
Lastly, long-term goals can intersect the length of medium-term goals, but may also last an entire lifetime. These are your endgame targets essentially, whether that is related to the position you want to hold when your career ends, if you want to achieve work-life balance, if you want to be financially secure, if you want to own and run your own organisation. It can be literally anything you want and is the north star that guides all of your decision making.
Within that longer time frame, people often plan to move into a leadership position, become specialised in their field or even transition to an entirely new industry based on the skills they develop during earlier periods of their career.
Bring in the tech
Self-assessment is key to developing a strong and practical career-progression plan, as it enables the employee to identify their skills, expose their vulnerabilities and devise a plan to address any deficits. While no one knows you like you do, it can be useful to implement tools and technologies to back up what you may already suspect in order to make a plan.
Development tools, for example skill assessments, SWOT-focused analytics and even personality tests can be a great way to explore areas for improvement and also track your success as you overcome challenges and work on weak areas. Charts that track skills development are a great motivator as they show where you started, how much you have improved and what is left to achieve.
While you can of course make a mental note of how you are performing and the timeline in which you would like to see professional development, charting it is the proof in the pudding and a great example of your commitment to your career. Especially when it comes time to show your employers your ambitions for the next few years and how they can facilitate further growth.
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