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How to Manage Your Future Career Prospects Today

Written by: Emma White

Article Overview: How much thought have you given to matching your personality traits and skills to your career direction? Often people spend more time deciding on what new car to purchase or their next holiday than making conscious decisions about a career path.

How to Manage Your Future Career Prospects Today

How much thought have you given to matching your personality traits and skills to your career direction? Often people spend more time deciding on what new car to purchase or their next holiday than making conscious decisions about a career path.

Take a minute to consider how you got to the career position you are in today. What choices and decisions have you made which has shaped your current career path? The majority of us at some point find ourselves in a career rut. Therefore it is essential to take control of your career future today and not leave it to chance.

Here are some things you can do to take back control of your career:

• Keep yourself up to date with your industry and role developments
• Network with employees and people external to your company in a similar career or industry
• Determine what the key strategic issues your company are focused on
• Determine what key responsibilities your manager or yourself see as your strengths and great contributors to the company.
• Find out what future projects are coming up and inquire about how you could get more involved to gain recognition and experience
• Understand your strengths and also weaknesses to identify gaps in knowledge and skills. These are personal development opportunities.

To stay motivated and to continue to make proactive steps to manage your career, try writing yourself a personal development plan (PDP)

SMART goals are essential to manage your career effectively, forming the basis of the PDP.
• Specific: Be specific, so that you have a clear goal to work towards and can tell when you have achieved it.
• Measurable: Ensure you can you easily track the progress towards achieving the goal.
• Attainable: Do you have the resources necessary to achieve your goal?
• Realistic: It has to be realistic in terms of time, value prioritisation and personal capability.
• Time orientated: Set timeframes for achieving your goal so you do not become complacent or put them off.

Set your long-term goals (5 years from now)

e.g. I wish to be a project manager in a HR environment by 2013

Set your medium term goals (1 year from now)

e.g. I will complete my Prince 2 Project Management qualification by July 2009

Set your short term goals – (daily / weekly tasks)

e.g. I will enquire with my manager types of projects I may be able to get involved in by end of next week, to enhance my experience base.

Review your PDP weekly to monitor and manage your progress. This approach can assist you in being proactive towards achieving your goals.

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Article Tags: career direction, career path, career position, choices, conscious decisions, gaps, long term goal, new car, personal capability, personal development opportunities, personal development plan, personality traits, proactive steps, smart goals, time value



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