assignment on career planning

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How to Develop a 5-Year Career Plan

• Mary McNevin, Ed. D.

Stop setting annual goals, and start thinking longer term.

Having a long-term plan for your career can help you reduce career-related stress, increase your perceived employability, and allow you to connect more deeply with your purpose. But how do you move beyond yearly career goals and create a five-year plan?

• Brainstorm. Start by thinking about how you want your career to develop and what you need to do to get there. This requires self-reflection. You’ll need to identify your primary goal, your passions, how your existing skills contribute to both those things, and your areas for improvement.
• Gather feedback. We’re not aways the best judges of our own capabilities and strengths. That’s why it can be important early in your planning process to gather feedback from your superiors, mentors, and peers. They may help you discover career opportunities you never considered for yourself, clue you into strengths you may be overlooking, and share insights regarding your areas for growth and development.
• Map it out. After doing some self-reflection and gathering feedback, it’s time to organize the information you’ve collected. Consider keeping track of your plan in PowerPoint. For example, slide 1 should outline the career goals you identified in your self-reflection. Slide 2 should list out the skills you already have and the ones you would need to achieve your ultimate career goals. Slide 3 should highlight the development activities you plan to pursue over the next five years to help you achieve your goals. And slide 4 should present all of the possible obstacles that might prevent you from achieving your goal and how to address those challenges.
• Iterate. Unlike year-long goal setting, the process of creating a five-year plan is never complete. One way to ensure you’re keeping your plan updated is to set a quarterly calendar reminder. This will help you address any new developments in your life or career and make changes where necessary.

“Where do you see yourself in five years?”

• MM Mary McNevin, Ed. D. is an executive coach, talent advisor, and former CLO and talent executive. She is a growth-oriented talent management executive with 20+ years of experience in learning, talent management, succession planning, and strategy development. Dr. McNevin earned her doctorate (EdD) from the University of Pennsylvania through an interdisciplinary program between the Graduate School of Education and the Wharton School of Business. Her dissertation focused on Executive Coaching in the C-suite. Dr. McNevin also holds an MBA from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and an MS in Education from the University of Pennsylvania.

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How To Create A Career Development Plan

Updated: Jun 15, 2024, 12:33pm

Table of Contents

What is a career development plan, benefits of a career development plan, creating an effective career development plan, tips for effective career development plans, sources of support for career development, frequently asked questions (faqs).

Chances are you have specific career aspirations. Maybe you hope to land a management position one day. Or perhaps you’d like to change industries or work at a startup or Fortune 500 company. No matter what you have in mind, a career development plan can come in handy. You can think of it as a roadmap for the future of your career. Keep reading to find out how to create a career development plan and why it’s worthwhile.

Also known as a professional development plan, a career development plan is a document that describes your career goals and the path you’ll take to achieve them. In the past, human resource departments and management teams used career development plans to support their employees’ growth. These days, however, more and more individuals are creating their own career development plans.

As you develop your career development plan, you’ll need to consider the current state of your career, your goals and what you need to do to move forward. While career development plans vary greatly, many of them include a variety of sections, such as a summary statement, short-term and long-term goals, current skills, developing skills and resources.

With a detailed, thoughtful career development plan, you’ll have a clear idea of the steps that will allow you to grow your career and meet (or even exceed) your goals. It can set you up for success in your current role and/or future positions.

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There are several noteworthy advantages of a career development plan, including:

Provides a Roadmap for the Future

If you take the time to create a career development plan, you’ll know exactly what your end goals are and how you can achieve them. Without one, you’ll be more tempted to just “go with the flow” and make random career decisions that may or may not propel you toward your definition of success.

Identifies Skills Gaps

While you likely have many strengths, there’s a good chance you have some weaknesses as well. A career development plan may help you turn those weaknesses into opportunities by encouraging you to fill skills gaps and become a more well-rounded employee. For example, your plan may reveal that while you’re a pro at written communication, your oral communication skills could use some work.

Inspires Motivation

Once you have a career development plan you’re happy with, you’ll be more motivated to work hard and push yourself professionally. If you lack one, you may find it easier to get discouraged and give up. Motivation is key regardless of how realistic or far-fetched your career goals might be.

When it comes to creating a useful career development plan, you’re in complete control. This means you can choose how to go about it. Since it’s your unique plan, the process is up to you. However, here are several steps you might want to consider.

Step 1. Consider your present-day situation

First and foremost, think about where you currently stand with your career. To do so, you may want to ask yourself these questions.

• What are my previous experiences?
• What do I enjoy?
• What do I dislike?
• Do I have a life calling?
• What types of skills do I have?
• Do I prefer to work independently or in a group setting?
• What motivates or excites me the most?

During this step, you’ll want to evaluate your current position and compare it to your past experiences, desires, strengths, skills and values. It will serve as a basis for your future career potential.

Step 2. Determine your goals

Next, it’s time to think about what you hope to accomplish. This will give your plan purpose and direction. As you jot down your goals, make sure they follow the SMART framework. A SMART goal is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.

It’s also in your best interest to break down your goals into short-term goals and long-term goals. Short-term goals will establish where you’ll be in a few years while long-term goals will indicate where you’ll be in the next five to 10 years.

Step 3. Assess your current skill set

Now, consider the skills you’re confident in as well as the skills you need to develop in the future to reach your goals. To help you gauge your skill set, read job postings that are related to your current position and positions you wish to land down the road.

If you’re a marketing manager, for example, you might be a pro at pay-per-click marketing but need to improve on search engine optimization. Be honest with yourself about which skills you’re proficient at and which ones require some more learning and experience.

Step 4. Explore your resources

You don’t have to meet your career goals on your own. In fact, it’s important to take full advantage of a variety of resources to help you out. Find out if your current employer offers a career development program. You can also explore mentorship opportunities at your company or certain organizations. Another option is to participate in career development workshops or classes. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and learn from others.

Step 5. Work toward your goals

During this step, you’ll have to put in the work so you can make some progress toward your goals. You can always get your managers and supervisors involved and check in with them on a regular basis to get their perspective on how you’re doing. As you work toward your goals, try new approaches and seek as much guidance as you need.

Step 6. Track your milestones

It’s not easy to work toward your goals and develop professionally. That’s why you’ll want to keep tabs on your milestones and celebrate them along the way. Let’s say you become an expert at a computer program that will further your career. Treat yourself to a meal out or an experience on your bucket list. This will keep you motivated to continue your hard work.

Step 7. Revisit your plan

A career development plan is not set in stone. It should be useful but also flexible enough to adapt to new situations. As you grow and your circumstances change and goals evolve, your career plan may require some modifications. If possible, review your plan every six months or so and revise it as necessary.

Not all career development plans are created equal. These tips can help you ensure yours sets you up for success.

Don’t Get Discouraged

There’s no denying that career goals can be difficult to meet. However, if you believe in yourself and remain persistent, you will succeed. Remember that setbacks will only make you stronger so don’t be afraid when they come your way.

Celebrate Wins

The key to career success is positive thinking. If you celebrate your wins, you can do just that. Reward yourself every time you check a goal off your list. Also, always consider how far you’ve come and get excited about where you’re going.

Build and Foster Your Network

Don’t wait for others to support you with your career. Instead, be proactive and develop relationships with a group of people who are invested in your growth and willing to provide you with the guidance you need to succeed.

Invest in Learning Opportunities

Knowledge is power and essential if you’d like to grow your career. It’s up to you to invest in learning opportunities, such as courses, certifications, podcasts, books, meet-up groups, seminars and mentorship programs.

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There are a number of people you may be able to turn to for support with your career development. Here are a few options to consider.

In most cases, managers care about your career. After all, your success often translates into their success. For this reason, it’s a good idea to develop strong relationships with them and turn to them for guidance. This is particularly true if you hope to land their positions one day and know they were in your shoes at one point in time.

Other Employees

Sometimes, the best career development advice comes from other employees in different departments or positions. Everyone has a unique story so it’s wise to get to know the backgrounds of others, especially if you’d like to expand your knowledge and skill set.

Bottom Line

In today’s competitive job market, a career development plan can be a helpful tool that businesses can use to help staff stay on track to achieving their professional goals. In return, it lends to a happier workforce and lower turnover rates, making it a win-win for employers and employees alike.

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When is the best time to create a career development plan?

Ideally, you’d create a development plan as soon as possible. No matter what stage you’re in, you can benefit from a roadmap that outlines your goals and aspirations clearly. Even if you’re already a manager or senior-level employee, a career development plan is worth the time and effort.

What is the difference between career development and professional development?

Professional development accounts for personal development in addition to career development. Career development, however, focuses on the steps you need to take to further your career.

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Anna Baluch is a freelance writer from Cleveland, Ohio. She enjoys writing about a variety of health and personal finance topics. When she's away from her laptop, she can be found working out, trying new restaurants, and spending time with her family. Connect to her on LinkedIn.

How to make a career plan [+templates]

Reading time: about 7 min

Sometimes when we see people with successful careers, we think their career was a result of luck or connections. While that may be true in some cases, often, successful careers are the result of planning. Talk to many executives, and they’ll detail how their career growth took place over a long path that included education, mentorship, challenges, and having an end goal in mind.

While you may have an idea of where you’d like to be, it’s difficult to take action on a general idea. By solidifying what you want exactly, you can take steps in the right direction, and those clear steps can help you feel empowered and motivated. 

What is a career plan?

A career plan is a structured and strategic roadmap that you can use to set and achieve your career goals. This plan outlines the steps, actions, and milestones needed to progress in your career over time. A well-thought-out career plan can help you make informed decisions about your professional development and enable you to work toward your desired career outcomes.

A typical career plan usually includes:

• Goal setting : Clearly define short-term and long-term career goals. These goals may include specific job roles, levels of responsibility, income targets, or personal development objectives.
• Self-assessment : Assess your skills, strengths, weaknesses, interests, values, and personality traits. Understanding yourself is essential for aligning your career choices with your personal preferences and capabilities.
• Research and exploration : Investigate different industries, job sectors, companies, and roles that align with your goals and interests. Gather information about the qualifications, experience, and skills required in your chosen field.
• Skill development : Identify the skills and knowledge you need to acquire or improve to advance in your career. Plan how you will acquire these skills through education, training, or on-the-job experience.
• Networking : Develop a professional network by connecting with colleagues, mentors, and industry professionals. Networking can provide valuable insights, opportunities, and support throughout your career.
• Résumé and personal branding : Create or update your résumé and online profiles to reflect your skills, achievements, and career objectives. Consistency in your personal brand can help you stand out to potential employers.
• Job search and application : If you are actively job hunting, your career plan should include strategies for finding and applying for positions that align with your goals. This might involve using job boards, attending job fairs, or leveraging your network.
• Performance evaluation : Periodically assess your progress toward your career goals. Are you meeting your milestones? Do you need to adjust your plan based on changing circumstances or priorities?
• Adaptability : Be prepared to adapt your career plan as circumstances change, new opportunities arise, or your interests evolve. Flexibility is crucial in navigating a dynamic job market.
• Long-term vision : Consider your ultimate career aspirations. Do you want to be a leader or make a difference in an industry? Maybe you want to start a business. Your long-term vision can guide your decisions and actions over the years.

Let’s be clear: a career plan is far more than just a piece of paper. It can sometimes be the difference between stagnating in a current role (and missing out on promotions, fulfillment, and earlier retirement) or achieving a fulfilling, higher-paying job. 

Career plan examples

With Lucid, you never need to start from scratch. We have a variety of career growth templates to get you started.

Career growth plan

Insert career growth plan template with caption: Career growth plan example (click to use template).

Career path

You may not want to become a project manager, but this career path template is an excellent example of a career path. What’s unique about this template is that it can help guide your research as you determine the steps from your current job to where you’d like to be. The research alone is helpful, but knowing what next steps lie ahead can also be motivating and inspiring. 

Insert career path template with caption: Career path example (click to use template).

Career progression chart

This granular career progression chart template shows the interconnectedness of many job roles, which is helpful for a career progression that can go in multiple directions. It also includes example salary ranges of job grades.

Insert career progression chart with the caption: Career progression chart example (click to use template).

How to make a career plan

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to create a comprehensive career plan:

Self-assessment

• Begin by assessing yourself. Reflect on your interests, values, strengths, weaknesses, and long-term aspirations.
• Identify your short-term and long-term career goals. What specific achievements or positions do you want to reach?

Research and exploration

• Research different career fields, industries, and job roles. Explore job market trends and potential career paths.
• Consider the qualifications, skills, and experience required for your desired roles.

Set SMART goals

• Make your goals specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). For example, instead of a vague goal like "get a better job," aim for something like "secure a project management role with a 20% salary increase within two years."

Identify skills and knowledge gaps

• Determine the skills and knowledge you need to achieve your goals. Be honest about your current skillset and identify any gaps.
• Create a list of the skills you need to develop or improve to reach your objectives.

Plan skill development

• Develop a plan to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge. This may involve taking courses, attending workshops, seeking mentorship, or gaining on-the-job experience.
• Set milestones and deadlines for skill development.

Build a professional network

• Start or expand your professional network.
• Attend networking events, conferences, and workshops relevant to your field.

Update your résumé and online profiles

• Keep your résumé and LinkedIn profile up-to-date. Highlight your skills, achievements, and career objectives.
• Ensure consistency in your personal brand across all professional platforms.

Job search and application strategy

• If you're actively job hunting, create a strategy for finding and applying for positions that align with your goals.
• Tailor your application materials (résumé, cover letter) for each job application.

Performance evaluation

• Regularly assess your progress toward your career goals. Are you meeting your milestones?
• Adjust your plan as needed based on your performance and changing circumstances.

Adaptability and flexibility

• Be open to adjusting your career plan as opportunities and challenges arise.
• Adapt to changes in your interests, the job market, or personal circumstances.

Long-term vision

• Consider your ultimate career aspirations. Where do you see yourself in 10, 20, or 30 years?
• Your long-term vision can guide your choices and priorities over time.

Seek feedback and guidance

• Don't hesitate to seek feedback from mentors, career counselors, or trusted colleagues. They can offer valuable insights and advice.

Document your plan

• Write down your career plan in a document or digital format. This document should serve as a roadmap for your career journey.

Regularly review and revise

• Periodically review and revise your career plan, especially as you achieve goals, encounter new opportunities, or face unexpected challenges.

Remember that a career plan is a dynamic document, so it should evolve as your career evolves. Regularly revisit and adjust your plan to stay on track and align with your changing aspirations and circumstances.

Start planning your career with Lucidchart

If you’re convinced a career plan is the way to go to make your career dreams come true, we’re here to help!

Get started with this career growth plan template in Lucidchart.  

About Lucidchart

Lucidchart, a cloud-based intelligent diagramming application, is a core component of Lucid Software's Visual Collaboration Suite. This intuitive, cloud-based solution empowers teams to collaborate in real-time to build flowcharts, mockups, UML diagrams, customer journey maps, and more. Lucidchart propels teams forward to build the future faster. Lucid is proud to serve top businesses around the world, including customers such as Google, GE, and NBC Universal, and 99% of the Fortune 500. Lucid partners with industry leaders, including Google, Atlassian, and Microsoft. Since its founding, Lucid has received numerous awards for its products, business, and workplace culture. For more information, visit lucidchart.com.

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12.2 Your Map to Success: The Career Planning Cycle

Questions to Consider:

• What steps should I take to learn about my best opportunities?
• What can I do to prepare for my career while in college?
• What experiences and resources can help me in my search?

The Career Planning Cycle helps us apply some concrete steps to figuring out where we might fit into the work world. If you follow the steps, you will learn about who you truly are, and can be, as a working professional. You will discover important knowledge about the work world. You will gain more information to help you make solid career decisions. You will get experience that will increase your qualifications. You will be more prepared to reach your professional goals. And the good news is that colleges and universities are set up nicely to help you utilize this process.

Learn About Yourself

To understand what type of work suits us and to be able to convey that to others to get hired, we must become experts in knowing who we are. Gaining self-knowledge is a lifelong process, and college is the perfect time to gain and adapt this fundamental information. Following are some of the types of information that we should have about ourselves:

• Interests: Things that we like and want to know more about. These often take the form of ideas, information, knowledge, and topics.
• Skills/Aptitudes : Things that we either do well or can do well. These can be natural or learned and are usually skills—things we can demonstrate in some way. Some of our skills are “hard” skills, which are specific to jobs and/or tasks. Others are “soft” skills, which are personality traits and/or interpersonal skills that accompany us from position to position.
• Values: Things that we believe in. Frequently, these are conditions and principles.
• Personality: Things that combine to make each of us distinctive. Often, this shows in the way we present ourselves to the world. Aspects of personality are customarily described as qualities, features, thoughts, and behaviors.

In addition to knowing the things we can and like to do, we must also know how well we do them. What are our strengths? When employers hire us, they hire us to do something, to contribute to their organization in some way. We get paid for what we know, what we can do, and how well or deeply we can demonstrate these things. Think of these as your Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs). As working people, we can each think of ourselves as carrying a “tool kit.” In our tool kit are the KSAs that we bring to each job. As we gain experience, we learn how best to use our tools. We gain more tools and use some more often than others, but all the tools we gather during our career stay with us in some form.

Consider the top KSAs you currently have in your tool kit. Consider at least one in each category that you would like to develop while you’re in college.

Because you’re expected to spend your time in college focusing on what you learn in your classes, it might seem like a lot of extra work to also develop your career identity. Actually, the ideal time to learn about who you are as a worker and a professional is while you are so focused on learning and personal development, which lends itself to growth in all forms. College helps us acquire and develop our KSAs daily through our coursework and experiences. What might be some ways you can purposefully and consciously learn about yourself? How might you get more information about who you are? And how might you learn about what that means for your career? Awareness of the need to develop your career identity and your vocational worth is the first step. Next, undertaking a process that is mindful and systematic can help guide you through. This process will help you look at yourself and the work world in a different way. You will do some of this in this course. Then, during your studies, some of your professors and advisors may integrate career development into the curriculum, either formally or informally. Perhaps most significantly, the career center at your school is an essential place for you to visit. They have advisors, counselors, and coaches who are formally trained in facilitating the career development process.

Often, career assessment is of great assistance in increasing your self-knowledge. It is most often designed to help you gain insight more objectively. You may want to think of assessment as pulling information out of you and helping you put it together in a way that applies to your career. There are two main types of assessments: formal assessments and informal assessments.

Formal Assessments

Formal assessments are typically referred to as “career tests.” There are thousands available, and many are found randomly on the Internet. While many of these can be fun, “free” and easily available instruments are usually not credible. It is important to use assessments that are developed to be reliable and valid. Look to your career center for their recommendations; their staff has often spent a good deal of time selecting instruments that they believe work best for students.

Here are some commonly used and useful assessments that you may run across:

• Interest Assessments: Strong Interest Inventory, Self-Directed Search, Campbell Interest and Skill Survey, Harrington-O’Shea Career Decision-Making System
• Personality Measures: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, CliftonStrengths (formerly StrengthsQuest), Big Five Inventory, Keirsey Temperament Sorter, TypeFocus, DiSC
• Career Planning Software: SIGI 3, FOCUS 2

Get Connected

If you would like to do some formal assessment on your own, either in addition to what you can get on campus or if you don’t believe you have reliable access to career planning, this site developed by the U.S. Department of Labor has some career exploration materials that you may find helpful.

Informal Assessments

Often, asking questions and seeking answers can help get us information that we need. When we start working consciously on learning more about any subject, things that we never before considered may become apparent. Happily, this applies to self-knowledge as well. Some things that you can do outside of career testing to learn more about yourself can include:

Self-Reflection:

• Notice when you do something that you enjoy or that you did particularly well. What did that feel like? What about it made you feel positive? Is it something that you’d like to do again? What was the impact that you made through our actions?
• Most people are the “go to” person for something. What do you find that people come to you for? Are you good with advice? Do you tend to be a good listener, observing first and then speaking your mind? Do people appreciate your repair skills? Are you good with numbers? What role do you play in a group?
• If you like to write or record your thoughts, consider creating a career journal that you update regularly, whether it’s weekly or by semester. If writing your own thoughts is difficult, seek out guided activities that help prompt you to reflect.
• Many colleges have a career planning course that is designed to specifically lead you through the career decision-making process. Even if you are decided on your major, these courses can help you refine and plan best for your field.

Enlist Others:

• Ask people who know you to tell you what they think your strengths are. This information can come from friends, classmates, professors, advisors, family members, coaches, mentors, and others. What kinds of things have they observed you doing well? What personal qualities do you have that they value? You are not asking them to tell you what career you should be in; rather, you are looking to learn more about yourself.
• Find a mentor—such as a professor, an alumnus, an advisor, or a community leader—who shares a value with you and from whom you think you could learn new things. Perhaps they can share new ways of doing something or help you form attitudes and perceptions that you believe would be helpful.
• Get involved with one or more activities on campus that will let you use skills outside of the classroom. You will be able to learn more about how you work with a group and try new things that will add to your skill set.
• Attend activities on and off campus that will help you meet people (often alumni) who work in the professional world. Hearing their career stories will help you learn about where you might want to be. Are there qualities that you share with them that show you may be on a similar path to success? Can you envision yourself where they are?
• No one assessment can tell you exactly what career is right for you; the answers to your career questions are not in a test. The reality of career planning is that it is a discovery process that uses many methods over time to strengthen our career knowledge and belief in ourselves.

Choose one of the suggestions from the list, above, and follow through on it. Keep a log or journal of your experience with the activity and note how this might help you think about your future after college.

Explore Jobs and Careers

Many students seem to believe that the most important decision they will make in college is to choose their major. While this is an important decision, even more important is to determine the type of knowledge you would like to have, understand what you value, and learn how you can apply this in the workplace after you graduate. For example, if you know you like to help people, this is a value. If you also know that you’re interested in math and/or finances, you might study to be an accountant. To combine both of these, you would gain as much knowledge as you can about financial systems and personal financial habits so that you can provide greater support and better help to your clients.

The four factors of self-knowledge (interests, skills/aptitudes, values, and personality), which manifest in your KSAs, are also the factors on which employers evaluate your suitability for their positions. They consider what you can bring to their organization that is at once in line with their organization’s standards and something they need but don’t have in their existing workforce.

Along with this, each job has KSAs that define it. You may think about finding a job/career as looking like the figure below.

The importance of finding the right fit cannot be overstated. Many people don’t realize that the KSAs of the person and the requirements of the job have to match in order to get hired in a given field. What is even more important, though, is that when a particular job fits your four factors of self-knowledge and maximizes your KSAs, you are most likely to be satisfied with your work! The “fit” works to help you not only get the job, but also enjoy the job.

So if you work to learn about yourself, what do you need to know about jobs, and how do you go about learning it? In our diagram, if you need to have self-knowledge to determine the YOU factors, then to determine the JOB factors, you need to have workplace knowledge . This involves understanding what employers in the workplace and specific jobs require. Aspects of workplace knowledge include:

• Labor Market Information: Economic conditions, including supply and demand of jobs; types of industries in a geographic area or market; regional sociopolitical conditions and/or geographic attributes.
• Industry Details: Industry characteristics; trends and opportunities for both industry and employers; standards and expectations.
• Work Roles: Characteristics and duties of specific jobs and work roles; knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to perform the work; training and education required; certifications or licenses; compensation; promotion and career path; hiring process.

This “research” may sound a little dry and uninteresting at first, but consider it as a look into your future. If you are excited about what you are learning and what your career prospects are, learning about the places where you may put all of your hard work into practice should also be very exciting! Most professionals spend many hours not only performing their work but also physically being located at work. For something that is such a large part of your life, it will help you to know what you are getting into as you get closer to realizing your goals.

How Do We Gain Workplace Knowledge?

• Learn the “textbook” definitions of what is involved in the jobs you are considering. In Chapter 4 , you used the Occupational Outlook Handbook to learn more about the requirements for occupations. Its sister site , will help show you more specific job titles.
• Read online information that is relevant to the professions you are interested in. Good sources for this include professional associations. Just “googling” information is risky. Look for professional and credible information. The Occupational Outlook Handbook has links to many of these sources. Your career center can also guide you.
• Whether you are just choosing your major or are already in a major and want to know what options it offers in terms of future work, look for this specific information. Your department may have this information; your campus career center definitely will. One very good site is What Can I Do With This Major?
• Join professional clubs on campus. Many of these organizations have guest speakers who come to meetings and talk about what their jobs are like. Often, they also sponsor field trips to different companies and organizations.
• As mentioned earlier, attend campus networking events and programs such as job fairs and recruiting information sessions so that you can talk to people who actually do the work and get their insights.

Something to keep in mind as you make choices about your major and career is that the training is not the job. What you learn in your college courses is often foundational information; it provides basic knowledge that you need for more complex concepts and tasks. For example, a second-year student who is premed has the interests and qualities that may make her a good physician, but she is struggling to pass basic chemistry. She starts to think that medical school is no longer an appropriate goal because she doesn’t enjoy chemistry. Does it make sense to abandon a suitable career path because of one 15-week course? In some ways, yes. In the case of medical school, the education is so long and intensive that if the student can’t persevere through one introductory course, she may not have the determination to complete the training. On the other hand, if you are truly dedicated to your path, don’t let one difficult course deter you.

The example above describes Shantelle. They weren’t quite sure which major to choose, and they were feeling pressure because the window for making their decision was closing. They considered their values and strengths—they love helping people and have always wanted to pursue work in medical training. As described above, Shantelle struggled in general chemistry this semester and found that they actually didn’t enjoy it at all. They’ve heard nightmare stories about organic chemistry being even harder. Simultaneously, Shantelle is taking Intro to Psychology, something they thought would be an easier course but that they enjoy even though it’s challenging. Much to their surprise, they found the scientific applications of theory in the various types of mental illness utterly fascinating. But given that their life dream was to be a physician, Shantelle was reluctant to give up on medicine because of one measly chemistry course. With the help of an advisor, Shantelle decided to postpone choosing a major for one more semester and take a course in clinical psychology. Since there are so many science courses required for premed studies, Shantelle also agreed to take another science course. Their advisor helped Shantelle realize that it was likely not a wise choice to make such an important decision based on one course experience.

Focus Your Path

When you know yourself and know what to expect from a workplace and a job, you have information to begin to make decisions. As we’ve discussed throughout this book, you’re not attending college solely to get a job. But this is likely one of your goals, and your time in school offers a tremendous opportunity to both prepare for your career (or careers ) and make yourself more attractive to organizations where you want to work. Successfully learning the content of your classes and earning good grades are among the most important. Beyond these priorities, you’ll learn the most about yourself and your potential career path if you engage in activities that will help you make decisions. Simply sitting back and thinking about the decision doesn’t always help you take action.

Take Advantage of Every Resource You Can While in School

Your college has a wealth of departments, programs, and people dedicated to your success. The more you work to discover and engage with these groups, the more successfully you’ll establish networks of support and build skills and knowledge for your career.

Make plans to drop by your career services or a related office early in your time in school. There, you’ll learn about events you can attend, and you’ll get to know some of the people there who can help you. The department may offer the formal assessments discussed earlier in this chapter, including aptitude testing, which can help you discover some of your areas of strength and give you insight into some high-potential career destinations. Career services may also have skills/interest inventories. These can help you match your attributes and ambitions with potential careers and suggest additional resources to explore.

Your college is also likely to have a resource that goes far beyond the campus itself: the alumni association. College alumni often maintain a relationship with the school and with their fellow graduates. Just by attending the same college, you have something in common with them. You chose the same place, maybe for similar reasons, and you might be having similar experiences. Often, alumni are eager to help current students by offering their professional insights and making career connections. You can find out about alumni events on your campus website, at the career center, and in the alumni department. These events can be fun and beneficial to attend, especially those involving networking opportunities. Note that specific departments or campus organizations may have their own alumni groups, whether formal or informal. Try to find former students who majored in your field or who have a job similar to the one you’d like one day. Remember, members of alumni organizations make a choice to be involved; they want to be there. It’s very likely they’ll be interested in offering you some help, mentoring, or even introductions to the right people.

Alumni may often attend events at your college, such as visiting guest speakers, art show openings, homecoming, or sporting events. You can find and talk with them there (under the right circumstances) and enjoy the event at the same time.

Networking is such a critical part of professional life that nearly every city or region has organizations and events devoted to it. Meetups are occasions for people with shared interests, skills, and professions to gather together and talk about their experiences and insights. The events might involve a brief talk or demonstration, a discussion or question-and-answer period, and then plenty of time for mingling. You can likely find these events with a quick search. But before you go, carefully review the guidelines and limits on who can attend. Some meetups may not be open to students or others not formally employed in a field; they may also be held in bars or involve alcohol, preventing those under 21 from attending. Don’t be offended by these barriers—the meetup organizers have specific goals and members to consider—but if you find one you can attend, try it out.

You can also network with people right at your college. Many of your college faculty likely have (or had) other roles and positions. A computer science professor may have worked for a tech company before moving into academia. Accounting faculty, especially certified public accountants, might take on tax work every spring. Nursing faculty likely maintain a role with a hospital or other medical office. Learn from them what the job is like and how you can better prepare for it. And don’t forget to talk to adjunct instructors; they may have an entirely separate career on top of their teaching role that gives them access to a network of potential mentors and employers.

Finally, you’ll likely encounter graduate students or preprofessional students, some of whom may be in the workforce or have work experience. While they themselves are still working on their education, they may have insights, connections, and ideas regarding your career.

Try Things Out

In the first two steps of the Career Planning Cycle, you gather information. You may have some ideas about jobs and careers that you may like, but you also may wonder if you will really like them. How will you know? How can you be more certain? Take an interest or a skill, and try it out in an experience. By putting it to work for you in any one of a number of different environments, you can get practice and learn more about who you are and just how much you can do. It’s a great idea to try out a new skill or career field before you commit to it fully. You might find out that the field isn’t right for you, but you also may find that you are heading in the right direction and want to keep pursuing it. Experiences help you become more qualified for positions. One exciting aspect of college is that there is a huge variety of learning experiences and activities in which to get involved. The following are some ways that you can try things out and get experience.

Community Involvement, Volunteering, and Clubs

You’re in college to develop yourself as an individual. You’ll gain personally satisfying and enriching experience by becoming more involved with your college or general community. Organizations, clubs, and charities often rely on college students because of their motivation, knowledge, and increasing maturity. The work can increase your skills and abilities, providing valuable experience that will lead to positive results.

Participate in clubs and volunteer in areas that appeal to your interests and passions. It’s just as important that you enjoy them and make a difference as it is to increase career potential through networking and skill-building. But of course, it’s great to do both.

Once you join a club or related organization, take the time to learn about their leadership opportunities. Most campus clubs have some type of management structure—treasurer, vice president, president, and so on. You may “move up the ranks” naturally, or you may need to apply or even run for election. Some organizations, such as a campus newspaper, radio station, or dance team, have skill-based semiprofessional or roles such as advertising manager, sound engineer, or choreographer. These opportunities may not always be available to you as freshmen, but you can take on shorter-term roles to build your skills and make a bigger impact. Managing a fundraiser, planning an event, or temporarily taking on a role while someone else is busy are all ways to engage further.

Volunteering can be an important way to access a profession and get a sense for whether you will enjoy it or not, even before you do an internship. And in certain arenas, such as politics, it might be the only readily accessible approach, especially if you have no prior experience. In all of these cases, you can build important skills and increase your experience working with people in your chosen field. Spend time reflecting on and recording your experiences so that you’re better prepared to talk about them and utilize what you learned.

Internships and Related Experiences

Many employers value experience as much as they do education. Internships and similar fieldwork allow you to use what you’ve learned and, sometimes more importantly, see how things work “in the real world.” These experiences drive you to communicate with others in your field and help you understand the day-to-day challenges and opportunities of people working in similar areas. Even if the internship is not at a company or organization directly in your field of study, you’ll focus on gaining transferable skills that you can apply later on.

Speaking to career or academic counselors and planning your major will help you learn about internship requirements and recommendations. You’ll find out how, where, and when to apply, the level of commitment required, and any limitations or guidelines your college indicates. If you’re going to receive credit for your internship or fieldwork, it must be directly related to your field of study.

When you intern, you are usually treated like you work there full-time. It’s not just learning about the job; it’s doing the job, often similarly to an entry-level employee. The level of commitment may vary by the type of internship and may be negotiable based on your schedule. Be very clear about what’s required and what you can handle given your other commitments, because you want to leave a very good impression. (Internship managers are your top resource for employment references and letters of recommendation.)

Note that while internships and similar positions may seem to involve low-level work, you maintain your rights and should be treated properly. Getting coffee, organizing shelves, and copying papers are often part of the work. Your internship should be structured with duties, responsibilities, and goals for learning that are mutually agreed upon by both you and the internship site, as well as approved by an internship supervisor from your college or university. This will help ensure a positive and productive experience for both you and your internship sponsor.

Students who take internships generally report them to be worthwhile experiences. In a survey of students taken by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, approximately 75 percent of students responding to the survey said their professionalism/work ethic, teamwork/collaboration, and oral/written communication skills were “very” to “extremely” improved by their internship/coop experience, and 66 percent said the same of their critical thinking/problem-solving skills. 3

Go to Internships.com and enter a specific keyword and location in the fields on the homepage, such as “airline” and “Bend, OR.” How many opportunities came back? How many piqued your interest?

Now, try to choose a broader, less specific keyword. For example, instead of “airline,” try “aviation” on the second search. If the first keyword was “physical therapy,” you might try “health care” for a broader search in the same field. Did you receive more opportunities the second time? Do you see ones that aren’t exactly in your field but that still seem interesting?

On sites like these, you can play with the options and filters to find a wide array of internship possibilities in related fields. In the example above, a future physical therapist who took an internship in another area of health care would certainly still learn a lot.

There are many and varied types of experiential learning opportunities that can help you learn more about different career opportunities. These are fully discussed in Chapter 4 . The table below provides a brief overview.

Productive Downtime

Throughout this book, we’ve discussed all the work required for a successful and productive college experience. And in this chapter, we’ve outlined a wide range of extracurricular activities that are likely necessary to achieve your career goals. But as we’ve also made clear, balance and rest are critical for success and well-being. Everyone needs time off.

So, when you have a school break, relax. Spend time with the people who motivate and help you—family and friends—or take a trip if that’s possible. If you work during school and school breaks, the decrease in your school responsibilities should help recharge your batteries.

Another way you might spend your time off from school is to find an employment and/or experiential opportunity, especially during a longer time off. Winter break may afford a weeklong volunteer opportunity or a brief externship. Summer break is particularly helpful for formal internships and other experiences.

If you do seek a summer internship or related activity, be aware that they can be very competitive. With many college students off for the summer, they may be targeting the same opportunities as you are. Work with your academic or career advisors to start the process early and put yourself in the best position to get an internship. Consider all of the application components, including essays, portfolio items, and letters of recommendation; all of these may take time to generate. If possible, pursue multiple opportunities to increase your chances. Just be clear on the application policies, and be sure to inform them if you take another position.

Summer jobs, whether related to your field or not, may also be hard to come by without prior planning. If you go away to school and need a job at home over the summer, be sure to connect with the potential employer early. Get them the application, resume, and any certifications or recommendations with plenty of time for them to process and contact you for clarification or follow-up. Employers who regularly employ college students will likely be comfortable working via email or by phone, but ask if an in-person interview is necessary, and see if you can schedule it during a spring break or as soon as you get back from school. Even if you don’t go away to school, plan and connect early. You wouldn’t want all the other students to come home and take your opportunity when you’ve been there all along.

While you're not focused on your schoolwork, or even after you graduate, you can keep learning. Beyond the different types of degrees and certificates discussed in the Academic Pathways chapter, you'll be more prepared and more attractive to a potential employer if you demonstrate a continued thirst and effort to gain knowledge and "remain current." Find the leaders in your field and read their articles or books (your future employers may be familiar with them). Or consider more formal summer courses, short-courses, or online learning opportunities. Each profession has its own resources. For example, in the software and computing field, Thinkful offers courses and mentoring for students and professionals.

Transferable Skills

Whether or not your internship or other experiences are directly connected to your career, you should focus as much as possible on building and improving transferable skills . These are abilities and knowledge that are useful across an array of industries, job types, and roles. They can be transferred—hence the name—from where you learned them to another career or area of study.

Examples of transferable skills include communication, personnel management/leadership, teamwork, computation/quantitative literacy, information technology, research/analysis, foreign language, and so on. If you search for lists of transferable skills, you’ll see that some sites only include compilations of a few very broad areas, such as communication, while others provide longer and more specific lists, such as breaking down communication into writing, verbal, and listening skills. Employers believe that transferable skills are critical to the success of their recent college graduate new hires. The top four career competencies that employers want are critical thinking/problem solving, teamwork/collaboration, professionalism/work ethic, and oral/written communication. 4 If you remember the statistics noted above, students said that all four of these skills were significantly improved through their internship experiences.

These are considered skills because they are not simply traits or personality elements; they are abilities and intelligences you can develop and improve. Even if you’re a great writer before starting an internship, you may need to learn how to write in a more professional manner—becoming more succinct, learning the executive summary, conforming to templates, and so on. Once you establish that skill, you can not only mention it on a resume or interview, but also discuss the process by which you improved, demonstrating your adaptability and eagerness to learn.

Not everyone can land an internship or perform fieldwork. Perhaps you need to work nearly full-time while in school. If so, focus on developing transferable skills in that environment. Take on new challenges in areas where you don’t have experience. For example, if you work in retail, ask your manager if you can help with inventory or bookkeeping (building quantitative literacy skills). If you’re a waiter, help the catering manager plan a party or order food (building organizational skills). Remember, extending yourself in this way is not simply a means to enhance your resume. By taking on these new challenges, you’ll see a side of the business you hadn’t before and learn things that you can apply in other situations.

Whether or not it’s required as a part of your internship or other experience, be sure to reflect on your time there—what you did, what you learned, where you excelled, where you didn’t excel. Maintaining a journal of some sort will enable you to share your experiences and employ your transferable skills in your college courses and other activities. Jot down some anecdotes, events, and tasks you performed. Any materials or documents you produced can go into your portfolio, and the record of your experience will serve you well while searching for a job. Consider that it is customary to be asked during a job interview to share a personal strength and a weakness. Sharing a strength is often more expected and, thus, easier to plan for. While it may seem reasonable to say that your weakness is that you’re always late, it’s better to provide a weakness within the context of work experience. For example, if you have had a part-time job where one of your colleagues was always slacking off and putting the load on others, you may have felt frustrated and even expressed your anger. Rather than view this as a negative, consider the positive benefit and craft this into a solid answer to the likely interview question. For example, “I have found that I’m rather impatient with colleagues who take shortcuts to a solution and don’t really apply themselves. My weakness is impatience. However, rather than call it out in a negative way, I share my observation as constructive feedback and let it go. My colleague can take it or leave it, but I’m not carrying it with me.” If you wrote about this experience around the time that it occurred, it will be easier to shape into a thoughtful response later. Continuing to work on your transferable skills will allow you to improve them and make a better impression on faculty, advisors, and potential employers.

What to Do to Get Ready

Being prepared to find a job means putting evidence of your KSAs together in a way that employers will understand. It is one thing to say you can do something; it is another to show that you can. The following are things that you will want to compile as a part of your college career.

Resumes and Profiles: The College Version

You may already have a resume or a similar profile (such as LinkedIn), or you may be thinking about developing one. Usually, these resources are not required for early college studies, but you may need them for internships, work-study, or other opportunities. When it comes to an online profile, something that is a public resource, be very considerate and intentional when developing it.

A resume is a summary of your education, experience, and other accomplishments. It is not simply a list of what you’ve done; it’s a showcase that presents the best you have to offer for a specific role. While most resumes have a relatively similar look and feel, there are some variations in the approach. Especially when developing your first résumé or applying in a new area, you should seek help from resources such as career counselors and others with knowledge of the field. Websites can be very helpful, but be sure to run your résume by others to make sure it fits the format and contains no mistakes.

A resume is a one-page summary (two, if you are a more experienced person) that generally includes the following information:

• Name and contact information
• Objective and/or summary
• While in college, you may list coursework closely related to the job to which you’re applying.
• Work or work-related experience—usually in reverse chronological order, starting with the most recent and working backward. (Some resumes are organized by subject/skills rather than chronologically. 5 )
• Career-related/academic awards or similar accomplishments
• Specific work-related skills

While you’re in college, especially if you went into college directly after high school, you may not have formal degrees or significant work experience to share. That’s okay. Tailor the résumé to the position for which you’re applying, and include high school academic, extracurricular, and community-based experience. These show your ability to make a positive contribution and are a good indicator of your work ethic. Later on in this chapter, we’ll discuss internships and other programs through which you can gain experience, all of which can be listed on your resume. Again, professionals and counselors can help you with this.

If you have significant experience outside of college, you should include it if it’s relatively recent, relates to the position, and/or includes transferable skills (discussed above) that can be used in the role for which you’re applying. Military service or similar experience should nearly always be included. If you had a long career with one company quite some time ago, you can summarize that in one resume entry, indicating the total years worked and the final role achieved. These are judgment calls, and again you can seek guidance from experts.

Digital Profiles

An online profile is a nearly standard component of professional job seeking and networking. LinkedIn is a networking website used by people from nearly every profession. It combines elements of résumés and portfolios with social media. Users can view, connect, communicate, post events and articles, comment, and recommend others. Employers can recruit, post jobs, and process applications. Alternatives include Jobcase, AngelList, Hired, and Nexxt. These varying sites work in similar ways, with some unique features or practices.

Some professions or industries have specific LinkedIn groups or subnetworks. Other professions or industries may have their own networking sites, to be used instead of or in addition to LinkedIn. Industry, for example, is a networking site specifically for culinary and hospitality workers.

As a college student, it might be a great idea to have a LinkedIn or related profile. It can help you make connections in a prospective field, and provide access to publications and posts on topics that interest you. Before you join and develop a public professional profile, however, keep the following in mind:

• Be professional. Write up your profile information, any summary, and job/education experience separately, check for spelling and other errors, and have someone review before posting. Be sure to be completely honest and accurate.
• Your profile isn’t a contest. As a college student, you may only have two or three items to include on your profile. That’s okay. Overly long LinkedIn profiles—like overly long resumes—aren’t effective anyway, and a college student’s can be brief.
• Add relevant experience and information as you attain it. Post internships, summer jobs, awards, or work-study experiences as you attain them. Don’t list every club or organization you’re in if it doesn’t pertain to the professional field, but include some, especially if you become head of a club or hold a competitive position, such as president or member of a performance group or sports team.
• Don’t “overconnect.” As you meet and work with people relevant to your career, it is appropriate to connect with them through LinkedIn by adding a personal note on the invite message. But don’t send connection invites to people with whom you have no relationship, or to too many people overall. Even alumni from your own school might be reluctant to connect with you unless you know them relatively well.
• Professional networking is not the same as social media. While LinkedIn has a very strong social media component, users are often annoyed by too much nonprofessional sharing (such as vacation/child pictures); aggressive commenting or arguing via comments is also frowned upon. As a student, you probably shouldn’t be commenting or posting too much at all. Use LinkedIn as a place to observe and learn. And in terms of your profile itself, keep it professional, not personal.
• LinkedIn is not a replacement for a real resume.

There’s no need to rush to build and post an online professional profile—certainly not in your freshman year. But when the time is right, it can be a useful resource for you and future employers.

Social Media and Online Activity Never Go Away

While thinking about LinkedIn and other networks, it’s a good time to remember that future employers, educational institutions, internship coordinators, and anyone else who may hire or develop a relationship with you can see most of what you’ve posted or done online. Companies are well within their rights to dig through your social media pages, and those of your friends or groups you’re part of, to learn about you. Tasteless posts, inappropriate memes, harassment, pictures or videos of high-risk behavior, and even aggressive and mean comments are all problematic. They may convince a potential employer that you’re not right for their organization. Be careful of who and what you retweet, like, and share. It’s all traceable, and it can all have consequences.

For other activities on social media, such as strong political views, activism, or opinions on controversial topics, you should use your judgment. Most strong organizations will not be dissuaded from working with you because you’re passionate about something within the realm of civility, but any posts or descriptions that seem insensitive to groups of people can be taken as a reason not to hire you. While you have freedom of speech with regard to the government, that freedom does not extend to private companies’ decisions on whether to hire you. Even public institutions, such as universities and government agencies, can reject you for unlawful activity (including threats or harassment) revealed online; they can also reject you if you frequently post opinions that conflict with the expectations of both your employer and the people/organizations they serve.

With those cautions in mind, it’s important to remember that anything on your social media or professional network profiles related to federally protected aspects of your identity—race, national origin, color, disability, veteran status, parental/pregnancy status, religion, gender, age, or genetic information (including family medical history)—cannot be held against you in hiring decisions.

Building Your Portfolio

Future employers or educational institutions may want to see the work you’ve done during school. Also, you may need to recall projects or papers you wrote to remember details about your studies. Your portfolio can be one of your most important resources.

Portfolio components vary according to field. Business students should save projects, simulations, case studies, and any mock companies or competitions they worked on. Occupational therapy students may have patient thank-you letters, summaries of volunteer activity, and completed patient paperwork (identities removed). Education majors will likely have lesson plans, student teaching materials, sample projects they created, and papers or research related to their specialization.

Other items to include a portfolio:

• Evidence of any workshops or special classes you attended. Include a certificate, registration letter, or something else indicating you attended/completed it.
• Evidence of volunteer work, including a write-up of your experience and how it impacted you.
• Related experience and work products from your time prior to college.
• Materials associated with career-related talks, performances, debates, or competitions that you delivered or took part in.
• Products, projects, or experiences developed in internships, fieldwork, clinicals, or other experiences (see below).
• Evidence of “universal” workplace skills such as computer abilities or communication, or specialized abilities such as computation/number crunching.

A portfolio is neither a scrapbook nor an Instagram story. No need to fill it with pictures of your college experience unless those pictures directly relate to your career. If you’re studying theology and ran a religious camp, include a picture. If you’re studying theology and worked in a food store, leave it out.

Certain disciplines, such as graphic design, music, computer science, and other technologies, may have more specific portfolio requirements and desired styles. You’ll likely learn about that in the course of your studies, but be sure to proactively inquire about these needs or seek examples. Early in your college career, you should be most focused on gathering components for your portfolio, not formalizing it for display or sharing.

Preparing to Network

Throughout this chapter, we have discussed how important relationships are to your career development. It can sometimes be a little intimidating to meet new people in the professional environment. But with preparation and understanding, these encounters can be not only helpful, but also rewarding. Here are some ideas to consider when meeting new people who can be helpful to your career:

• Be yourself. You’re your own best asset. If you’re comfortable with who you are and where you come from, others will be, too.
• Remember, you’re in college and they know it. Don’t try to impress everyone with what you know ; alumni or faculty know more. Instead, talk about what you’re learning —your favorite class, the project you’re most proud of, or even the ones by which you’ve been most challenged.
• Be polite, not too casual. If your goal is to become a professional, look and sound the part.
• Think of some questions ahead of time. Don’t aim for difficult questions or anything too personal, but asking people how they got into their career, with whom they studied in college, what their job is like, and similar questions will both start conversations and provide you with meaningful insight.
• Don’t stress. Remember, if alumni, even highly successful ones, are speaking to you, it’s usually because they want to. An encounter over finger food or a brief meetup in the Rad Tech department office isn’t going to make or break your job prospects.
• If appropriate and timely, ask if you can keep in touch. Be prepared with a polished email address and phone number. For example, if your current address is “[email protected],” consider creating a second account that’s more professional.
• Say thank you. No need to go on and on, but thank them for any advice they give or simply for taking the time to talk with you

While you’re in college, don’t try to impress everyone with what you know . Instead, talk about what you’re learning .

Making Your Case through the Words of Others: Letters of Recommendation

Whether you go on to graduate school or directly into the workforce (or both at the same time), decision makers will want to learn more about you. Your grades, interviews, test scores, and other performance data will tell them a lot. But sometimes they’ll want to hear from others.

Letters of recommendation are often a standard component of convincing people you’re the right person to join their organization. Some positions or institutions require a certain quantity of letters and may have specific guidance on who should write them. Other companies will accept them as additional evidence that you’re a great candidate. Either way, gathering such letters or having a few people whom you can ask for them will put you in a better position. Note that internships, especially competitive ones, may also require letters of recommendation.

Whom to ask for a letter? They’re usually written by instructors, department chairs, club advisors, managers, coaches, and others with whom you’ve had a good relationship. Maybe it’s someone who taught two or three of your courses, or someone you helped in a volunteer or work-study capacity.

Just by taking the time to write the letter, a faculty member is sending a message: “The person about whom I’m writing impressed me.” So the first step is to make a good impression on the person you’re asking to write a letter. You may do this in many ways. Getting a good grade in the class is important, but a faculty member may be more impressed by your perseverance, improvement over time, or creativity in meeting challenges.

How to ask? Be straightforward and direct. The appeal is best made in person, but be prepared for the person you’re asking to ask for some time to make the decision. People who get frequent requests may have a policy or even a form to fill out. They may ask you to provide more information about yourself so that they can write an original letter. If they do so, be thorough but prompt—you don’t want to keep them waiting. And if you have a deadline, tell them.

When to ask? If you encounter a faculty member early in your college career who you think would be the best person to write a letter for you, ask them what they think toward the end of your course or soon after. They may feel it’s too early or not specific enough to simply hand you a general letter at that time. If so, ask if you can come back when you are applying to internships, jobs, or grad schools.

If you wait until you’re applying or you’re about to graduate, you may have a more specific subject or reason for a letter. Be sure to tell the writer where you’re applying and what type of career you’re going into, so they can tailor the recommendation to that area.

Thank-you notes. They wrote you a letter, so you should write them one in return. A brief and personal thank-you note is appropriate and necessary.

Steps to Success

“Things change—circumstances change. Learn to adapt. Adjust your efforts and yourself to what is presented to you so you can respond accordingly. Never see change as a threat—do not get intimidated by it. Change can be an opportunity to learn, to grow, to evolve, and to become a better person.” ―Rodolfo Costa 6

Preparing for Change and Being Open to Opportunities

Earlier in this text, we discussed managing change, adapting to the unexpected, and handling setbacks. These are critical skills that, while difficult during the process, ultimately build a better—and more employable—you. While you can’t prepare for every obstacle or surprise, you can be certain that you’ll encounter them.

You may go through all of college, and even high school, with one job in mind. You may apply early to a specific program, successfully complete all the requirements, and set yourself on a certain career path. And then something may change.

As described above, changes in your interests or goals are a natural part of developing your career; they’re nothing to be ashamed of. Most college students change majors several times. Even once they graduate, many people find themselves enjoying careers they didn’t envision. Ask the people around you, and many will share stories about how they took a meandering or circuitous path to their profession. Some people end up in jobs or companies that they didn’t know existed when they started school.

What’s most important is that you build on your successes and failures, consider all your experiences, and pursue your purpose and overarching personal goals. For example, if you want to become a police officer but cannot complete all of the degree requirements on time, taking a job as a security officer or even an unrelated job in the meantime might lead to a great deal of satisfaction and set you on a different path. If, after that, you still want to pursue law enforcement, you can build it into your plan—managing your priorities, gaining the required experience and credentials, and applying for jobs closer to your chosen career.

This early in your college experience, you shouldn’t be too worried about how to conduct job interviews or explain employment gaps or changing directions. However, you may need or want to explain the thinking behind your future plans to academic advisors, internship managers, your peers, and your family. You should feel free to do so openly, but you’ll probably be better prepared if you revisit some of the ideas discussed earlier in this chapter. Consider how a shift in your plans, whether slight or significant, reflects who you are now and who you hope to be in the future. Knowing yourself as an emerging and new professional by discovering and developing your interests, skills, values, personality, and strengths is something that everyone should do on an ongoing basis throughout their lives. Explore job opportunities or career paths available to people in your new major or discipline area. Think about whether you need to handle any financial impacts, such as paying for additional education or delaying employment.

Employers, for their part, are often unfazed by changes or even mistakes. Remember, when they ask about your greatest weakness or failure, they want to hear something genuine. Just like the alumni you meet or the faculty you’re asking for recommendations, interviewers may be more impressed by how and what you’ve learned rather than how you followed a preplanned path. Remember, most jobs are a continuous thread of situations to think through, information to analyze, and problems to solve. Your ability to solve your own problems, and reflect and discuss them later, will show that you’re ready to do the same for an employer.

• 3 2018 Student Survey Report . National Association of Colleges and Employers. https://www.naceweb.org/career-readiness/internships/students-internships-positively-impact-competencies/
• 4 National Association of Colleges and Employers. “The Four Career Competentices Employers Value Most.” 2019. https://www.naceweb.org/career-readiness/competencies/the-four-career-competencies-employers-value-most/
• 5 Writing@CSU. “Organizing Your Resume.” https://writing.colostate.edu/guides/page.cfm?pageid=1517&guideid=77
• 6 Costa, Robert. Advice My Parents Gave Me: Aand Other Lessons I Learned from My Mistakes. 2011.

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• Publication date: Mar 27, 2020
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• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/college-success/pages/1-introduction
• Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/college-success/pages/12-2-your-map-to-success-the-career-planning-cycle

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Career Planning

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In this article

As an HR professional, you understand the significance of career planning in nurturing a motivated and skilled workforce. Career planning involves strategic initiatives aimed at helping employees explore and develop their careers within an organization.

In this guide, we will delve into the key components, benefits, best practices, challenges, and future trends of career planning. By implementing effective career planning strategies, you can foster employee engagement, drive talent acquisition , and enhance overall organizational success.

What is Career Planning?

Career planning is a strategic and systematic process that involves individuals and organizations working collaboratively to identify and develop career goals, explore growth opportunities, and create actionable plans to achieve desired career outcomes. It is a proactive approach that focuses on aligning an individual's skills, interests, and values with organizational objectives, ensuring a mutually beneficial relationship between employee career progression and organizational success. Career planning encompasses self-assessment, goal setting, career exploration, skill development, and action planning to facilitate continuous learning, professional growth, and long-term career satisfaction.

Why is Career Planning Important in HR?

Career planning holds immense significance in the realm of human resources (HR). It plays a pivotal role in attracting and retaining top talent, enhancing employee engagement, and driving organizational productivity. Here are several key reasons why career planning should be a priority for HR professionals:

• Talent Acquisition and Recruitment: Implementing effective career planning programs showcases the organization's commitment to employee development and growth. This attracts high-potential candidates who value career advancement opportunities, positioning the company as an employer of choice.
• Employee Engagement and Retention: Career planning fosters a sense of purpose and direction among employees, providing them with clear pathways for growth and advancement. This leads to higher levels of job satisfaction, increased employee engagement, and ultimately, improved retention rates.
• Succession Planning and Leadership Development : By identifying and nurturing high-potential individuals within the organization, career planning contributes to succession planning efforts. It helps identify future leaders, ensuring a smooth transition when key positions become vacant and minimizing disruption to business operations.
• Enhanced Employee Performance and Productivity: When employees have a clear understanding of their career goals and a roadmap for achieving them, they are more motivated, focused, and productive. Career planning provides a framework for employees to develop the necessary skills, knowledge, and competencies required to excel in their roles.
• Organizational Adaptability and Flexibility: Career planning encourages employees to continuously learn and develop new skills, enabling organizations to adapt to changing business needs and market dynamics. It facilitates a culture of innovation, agility, and lifelong learning, positioning the organization for long-term success.
• Employee Empowerment and Satisfaction: Career planning empowers employees by giving them a voice and active participation in their own professional growth. It demonstrates the organization's investment in their development, leading to increased job satisfaction, higher morale, and a stronger sense of loyalty.
• Improved Talent Management and Internal Mobility: Effective career planning allows HR professionals to identify and leverage internal talent for new opportunities within the organization. This reduces the reliance on external recruitment, enhances knowledge sharing and collaboration, and optimizes talent utilization.

In summary, career planning serves as a catalyst for individual and organizational growth, contributing to talent acquisition, engagement, and retention. By proactively investing in career development initiatives, HR professionals can create a dynamic and fulfilling work environment that nurtures employees' potential and drives overall organizational success.

Benefits of Career Planning

Effective career planning brings numerous advantages to both employees and organizations. By investing in career development, you can unlock the following benefits:

Employee Retention and Engagement

When employees perceive a clear career path and growth opportunities within your organization, they are more likely to remain committed and engaged. Career planning promotes loyalty and reduces turnover, leading to a stable and motivated workforce.

Skill Development and Talent Acquisition

Career planning enables employees to identify and develop the skills required for their desired career progression. Moreover, it helps HR professionals identify top talent within the organization, facilitating effective succession planning and talent acquisition.

Succession Planning

By proactively identifying and grooming potential future leaders, career planning plays a crucial role in succession planning. It ensures a smooth transition of key roles and responsibilities, minimizing disruptions and maintaining organizational continuity.

Improved Employee Performance and Productivity

When employees have a clear sense of direction and purpose, their performance and productivity tend to improve. Career planning provides employees with goals and milestones to strive for, leading to enhanced job satisfaction and outcomes.

Key Components of Career Planning

To implement a successful career planning program, you need to focus on the following key components:

Self-Assessment

• Identifying Skills, Interests, and Values: Encourage employees to reflect on their skills, interests, and values to gain a better understanding of their career aspirations and align them with organizational goals.
• Personality and Aptitude Tests: Utilize personality and aptitude tests to help employees identify their strengths, weaknesses, and areas of potential growth.

Goal Setting

• Short-term and Long-term Goals: Work with employees to set both short-term and long-term career goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART goals).
• Developing Actionable Plans: Collaborate with employees to create actionable plans outlining the steps required to achieve their career goals.

Career Exploration

• Researching Job Roles and Industries: Encourage employees to explore different job roles and industries to broaden their understanding of potential career paths.
• Networking and Informational Interviews: Promote networking and informational interviews to connect employees with professionals in their desired fields, helping them gather insights and build relationships.

Skill Development and Training

• Identifying Skill Gaps: Conduct skills assessments and performance evaluations to identify areas where employees need to enhance their skills.
• Pursuing Professional Development Opportunities: Provide employees with access to training programs, workshops, conferences, and online courses that align with their career goals.

Action Planning

• Creating a Career Development Plan : Collaborate with employees to create personalized career development plans that outline their goals, strategies, and timelines.
• Identifying Resources and Strategies: Help employees identify the resources, mentors, and strategies required to achieve their career objectives.

Career Planning Tools and Techniques

To facilitate effective career planning, HR professionals can utilize various tools and techniques, including:

Individual Development Plans (IDPs)

Individual Development Plans (IDPs) are structured documents that outline an employee's short-term and long-term goals, development activities, and resources needed to achieve those goals. IDPs provide a roadmap for employees and their managers to track progress and identify opportunities for growth.

Performance Management Systems

Integrating career planning into performance management systems allows HR professionals to align employee goals with organizational objectives. Regular performance discussions and feedback sessions can help identify areas for improvement and career development opportunities.

Mentoring and Coaching Programs

Establishing mentoring and coaching programs within your organization fosters professional growth and knowledge transfer. Pairing employees with experienced mentors or coaches provides guidance, support, and valuable insights to help individuals navigate their career paths successfully.

Job Rotation and Job Enrichment

Job rotation and job enrichment programs expose employees to different roles and responsibilities within the organization. These programs provide opportunities for skill development, knowledge expansion, and career exploration.

Succession Planning Programs

Integrating career planning with succession planning programs allows organizations to identify and prepare high-potential employees for future leadership roles. Succession planning ensures a seamless transition when key positions become vacant.

Career Planning Best Practices

Implementing effective career planning strategies requires careful consideration of the following best practices:

Clear Communication and Employee Buy-In

Communicate the purpose, benefits, and expectations of career planning to employees. Encourage their active participation and ensure they understand how career planning aligns with their individual aspirations and the organization's goals.

Collaboration between HR and Managers

Collaborate with managers to identify and support career development opportunities for their team members. Provide managers with the necessary training and resources to effectively guide employees through their career journeys.

Customization and Flexibility

Recognize that career paths are unique to individuals. Tailor career planning programs to accommodate employees' diverse backgrounds, interests, and goals. Provide flexibility for employees to explore different paths and make adjustments as needed.

Regular Performance Reviews and Feedback

Incorporate career discussions into regular performance reviews and provide constructive feedback to employees. Identify strengths, areas for improvement, and development opportunities that align with their career aspirations.

Monitoring and Evaluation

Continuously monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of career planning programs. Collect feedback from employees, track their progress, and measure the impact of career planning initiatives on employee engagement, retention, and development.

Career Planning Challenges

Despite its benefits, career planning can face several challenges. It's essential to address these challenges to ensure the success of your career planning programs:

Resistance to Change

Some employees may resist career planning initiatives due to fear of uncertainty or the perceived effort required. Communicate the benefits and value of career planning, addressing any concerns and emphasizing its role in personal and professional growth.

Lack of Resources and Budget Constraints

Limited resources and budget constraints can pose challenges in implementing comprehensive career planning programs. Seek creative solutions, such as leveraging technology for cost-effective training options or partnering with external organizations for mentorship opportunities.

Limited Career Opportunities

In organizations with limited career advancement opportunities, it's crucial to provide alternative growth paths, such as lateral moves, skill development, or project-based assignments. Help employees see the value in acquiring new skills and gaining diverse experiences.

Overcoming Bias and Stereotypes

Address unconscious bias and stereotypes that may impact career advancement opportunities. Implement fair and transparent processes for promotions and assignments, ensuring equal access to career development opportunities for all employees.

Balancing Individual and Organizational Needs

Strike a balance between individual career aspirations and organizational needs. While supporting employees' growth, ensure their career goals align with the strategic objectives of the organization to foster long-term success.

Career Planning Examples

Implementing career planning initiatives can take various forms within an organization. Let's explore some practical examples of career planning strategies that HR professionals can utilize:

1. Individual Development Plans (IDPs)

Individual Development Plans (IDPs) are widely used in career planning. Here are a few examples of how IDPs can be implemented:

• John , a marketing specialist, wants to transition into a managerial role within two years. His IDP includes attending leadership workshops, taking courses in management, and shadowing experienced managers to develop the necessary skills.
• Maria , an entry-level software developer, wants to specialize in cybersecurity. Her IDP involves pursuing industry certifications, attending relevant conferences, and seeking out mentorship from cybersecurity professionals.

2. Job Rotation and Job Enrichment

Job rotation and job enrichment can provide employees with diverse experiences and opportunities for growth:

• Sarah , a customer service representative, expresses an interest in understanding different aspects of the business. HR arranges a job rotation program where Sarah spends several months working in sales, marketing, and operations departments to gain a broader understanding of the organization.
• David , an HR generalist, wishes to develop expertise in recruitment. Through job enrichment, he takes on additional responsibilities, such as participating in recruitment campaigns, conducting interviews, and assisting with employer branding initiatives.

3. Mentoring and Coaching Programs

Mentoring and coaching programs foster professional development and knowledge transfer:

• Emma , a junior accountant, is paired with a senior finance manager as her mentor. The mentor provides guidance, shares industry insights, and helps Emma set goals for career progression.
• Michael , a newly promoted team leader, receives coaching from an experienced manager. The coaching sessions focus on enhancing leadership skills, effective communication, and building a high-performing team.

4. Training and Professional Development

Investing in training and professional development programs is essential for skill enhancement:

• Alexandra , an HR assistant, attends workshops and courses on HR analytics to gain proficiency in data analysis. She also participates in webinars and online training programs to stay updated on the latest HR trends and best practices.
• Daniel , a sales executive, seeks to improve his negotiation skills. HR arranges specialized training sessions conducted by experienced negotiators and provides access to online resources for continuous learning.

5. Succession Planning Programs

Integrating career planning with succession planning ensures the development of future leaders:

• Sophia , a high-potential employee, is identified as a potential successor to a senior manager. HR creates a customized development plan that includes leadership training, mentorship from top executives, and exposure to cross-functional projects.
• James , a department supervisor, is being groomed for a managerial position. HR facilitates his participation in an executive education program focused on strategic management and provides opportunities to lead critical projects.

These examples illustrate the diverse strategies that HR professionals can employ in career planning. By tailoring these approaches to individual employees' goals and organizational needs, HR can create an environment that supports employee growth, engagement, and long-term success.

Future Trends in Career Planning

As the world of work evolves, career planning continues to adapt to meet changing needs.

Career Development in the Digital Age

Leverage technology-driven platforms and tools to provide employees with virtual career development resources, online training, and self-paced learning opportunities. Virtual mentorship programs and e-learning platforms can enhance accessibility and flexibility.

Skills-Based Hiring and Training

As the demand for specific skills evolves rapidly, career planning will increasingly focus on identifying and developing critical skills required for future job roles. Emphasize skills-based hiring and training to align employees' capabilities with evolving industry needs.

Remote Work and Virtual Career Planning

The rise of remote work and virtual teams requires HR professionals to adapt career planning programs to support employees regardless of their physical location. Leverage virtual career development tools, online networking platforms, and remote mentorship opportunities.

Emphasis on Lifelong Learning

Encourage a culture of lifelong learning within your organization. Support employees in acquiring new skills, staying updated with industry trends, and pursuing continuous professional development. Promote learning resources, microlearning modules, and access to online courses.

Ensuring Diversity and Inclusion in Career Planning

To foster a diverse and inclusive work environment, it is important to consider the following aspects in career planning:

Addressing Bias in Career Development

Be proactive in identifying and mitigating bias in career development processes. Implement objective performance evaluations, ensure fair access to growth opportunities, and promote diversity in leadership positions.

Supporting Underrepresented Groups

Create targeted programs and initiatives to support the career growth of underrepresented groups, such as women, racial and ethnic minorities, and individuals with disabilities. Provide mentorship, networking, and sponsorship opportunities to foster inclusivity.

Providing Equal Access to Opportunities

Ensure equal access to career planning resources and opportunities for all employees, regardless of their background or demographic characteristics. This includes making career development tools, training programs, and mentorship accessible and inclusive.

How to Measure the Effectiveness of Career Planning Programs?

To evaluate the impact of your career planning initiatives, keep the following measurement strategies in mind:

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Identify relevant KPIs that align with your organization's goals and measure the effectiveness of career planning programs. Examples of KPIs include employee retention rates, promotion rates, employee satisfaction scores, and skill development metrics.

Employee Satisfaction Surveys

Incorporate career planning-related questions into regular employee satisfaction surveys. Obtain feedback on the perceived effectiveness of career planning initiatives and identify areas for improvement.

Tracking Employee Progress and Advancement

Track and document employees' career progression within the organization. Monitor their achievements, promotions, and skill development milestones to assess the impact of career planning programs on their professional growth.

Legal and Ethical Considerations in Career Planning

When implementing career planning programs, it is crucial to adhere to legal and ethical guidelines:

Compliance with Employment Laws and Regulations

Ensure that career planning initiatives comply with applicable employment laws, regulations, and equal opportunity regulations. Avoid discriminatory practices and promote fairness and transparency in career development processes.

Confidentiality and Privacy

Respect employee privacy and confidentiality when collecting and storing career-related information. Safeguard employee data and ensure it is used solely for career planning purposes.

Avoiding Discrimination and Unfair Treatment

Guard against discriminatory practices in career planning, such as biases based on gender, race, age, or other protected characteristics. Promote inclusivity, diversity, and equal access to career development opportunities.

Implementing effective career planning strategies is paramount for HR professionals aiming to foster employee engagement, retain top talent, and drive organizational success. By understanding the benefits, key components, best practices, and challenges associated with career planning, you can design and implement robust career development programs that empower employees and align with your organization's strategic goals. Embrace future trends and prioritize diversity and inclusion in your career planning initiatives to create a thriving and dynamic workplace where employees can reach their full potential.

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Career development plan  

Learn what a career development plan is and how to create it. Discover examples and download the career development planning template in PDF.

Julia Kuzmina

Content Marketing Specialist, Valamis

February 1, 2023 · updated July 10, 2024

14 minute read

The idea of an employee remaining in the same role for the entirety of their career seems less relevant with each passing year.

Employees are now looking for more from their professional lives, and employers see benefits in helping them. Organizations can prevent burnout by introducing career development plans and keeping staff motivated with new and exciting challenges. As a company grows, so should its employees.

What is a career development plan?

• The purpose of a career development plannning

Why career development is important

How organizations can support employee career development, how to create a personalized career development plan for an employee.

• When to start thinking about career development plan
• Career development plan example (template)

A career development plan is a personalized roadmap designed to help employees achieve professional goals. It typically consists of short- and long-term goals related to each employee’s specific strengths and weaknesses, their current role, future ambitions, and the organization’s requirements.

While a career development plan can take several formats, they often incorporate a series of formal and informal steps an employee should undertake to improve their professional skills, increase their workplace value, and progress in their career . This could be by expanding their current role and taking on more responsibility or transitioning to a new position.

The personalized nature of career development plans is crucial to their success. Every employee is unique, with different skills, strengths, and potential within a business and other wants and needs from their professional life. Organizations must work with employees to design a career development plan that benefits both parties.

The following is a generalized approach to creating and maintaining a career development plan:

• Starting point – where the employee is in their career and an assessment of their current skillset, values, and aspirations
• Ideal career – what they want to achieve in their career, defining specific goals and objectives
• The difference – skill gaps they need to overcome to transition from their current role to their ideal role
• The path – a plan to bridge the gap; this defines a written career plan with specific steps the employee needs to accomplish
• Review – as progression occurs, employees and organizations must review and reshape career development plans based on new factors.

The purpose of a career development plan

A career development plan creates a written record of what an employee wants to achieve. This record can have a different purpose for employees and employers.

The purpose for employees

• help them define career goals and organize/plan the steps they need to take to progress. It also helps employees understand the potential for internal mobility and how their goals align with the organization.

The purpose for your company

• career development plans play a critical role in workforce planning and talent management , acting as a tool for HR departments to design future training programs. With a clear understanding of each employee’s career goals, organizations can work with them to achieve their potential and increase the value they generate for the company.

Career development plan template

This template helps employees and leaders plan together for career growth: set goals, assess skills, and make a plan.

The importance for employees

• Career development planning helps employees map out their future, organizing and identifying the steps they should take to achieve their professional goals . This includes connecting longer-term objectives with day-to-day activities, growing professionally, and setting achievable milestones.
• These all help enhance motivation and improve job performance , aiding the likelihood of achieving the long-term aims of the career development plan. Sometimes just having a future goal in mind improves present behaviors to the extent that the goal itself is more attainable. For example, with a clear career development plan in place, employees can focus on their professional development and target the specific skills they need to improve.
• Career development plans show employees what to do to achieve their dream job .
• They also improve transparency between employees and employers . Therefore, when mutually beneficial, organizations can invest in resources (e.g., educational material, external learning opportunities, etc.) to help employees improve themselves and progress in their careers.

The importance of learning opportunities and career planning and development has only increased in recent years.

Glint’s 2021 Employee Well-Being Report ranked “ opportunities to learn and grow ” as the number one driver of excellent workplace culture, up eight spots from the previous year.

In the past, in-person interactions were the primary driver of workplace culture. Team meals, drinks after work, and impromptu chats in the hallway are all examples of interaction significantly reduced with new remote and hybrid work models

The pandemic removed the importance of in-person interactions combined with new technologies and accelerated digital transformation. It created a less certain future, with employees more concerned about job security.

With more significant uncertainty, it is unsurprising that drivers of culture related to employee growth have risen in importance. Employees now want more than a paycheck and a pat from their employer. They want to perform their work while also getting the opportunity to work on themselves, developing into better employees to help reduce job insecurity worries.

Career development plans and associated training programs help staff see their role as more than just a job. It is a path to a more secure or financially rewarding position.

The importance for companies

Unfortunately, many companies neglect career development plans and employee training programs to the detriment of their workforce. Investing in employee development is critical to maintaining a vibrant and effective team. Achievers’ 2020 Engagement & Retention Report found:

• 46% of employees feel only moderately valued by their bosses
• 30% feel “not very” or “not at all” valued
• 26% feel that being undervalued is the most significant barrier to becoming engaged in their work.

One way to dispel these feelings is to invest in employee development , demonstrating that the company values workers. With active L&D programs, organizations can boost employee retention and hold on to their most valuable team members.

LinkedIn found that 94% of employees would continue to work at a company for longer if they invested in their learning and development. For ten years, the Work Institute has ranked career development concerns as the number one reason employees leave organizations .

Employers need to treat and guide their L&D programs with career development plans because it helps attract and retain top talent.

This is before they even consider the potential performance benefits of career development programs and how they can inform upskilling and reskilling initiatives.

Perhaps just as bad as talented employees leaving is unskilled, unmotivated employees remaining at your company. Gallup’s 2022 report on the “State of the Global Workplace” estimates that actively disengaged employees cost the global economy $7.8 trillion, 11% of the world’s GDP . In contrast, the benefits of high employee engagement are startling. By analyzing over one hundred thousand business units and comparing the top quartile to the bottom quartile, Gallup found:

• 23% higher profitability
• 14-18% higher productivity
• 10% higher customer loyalty

Thankfully employee development is a crucial driver of engagement, with previous studies showing that 80% of employees are more engaged when learning new skills .

Employee upskilling programs make people better at their job, boosting engagement and arming staff with the skills needed to enhance company performance.

Career development plans ensure that upskilling targets people with the right skills. With individualized training based on an employee’s long-term goals, companies can build a talented, engaged, and happy workforce capable of delivering success.

Career development plans benefit both the employer and the employee when implemented correctly. Therefore, you should work with your staff to help them accomplish their goals and become well-rounded, successful employees.

While employees must take responsibility and drive their own career development, organizations can also create an environment conducive to learning new skills. This includes:

• Developing an additive learning ecosystem that can enhance employees’ experience regardless of how they like to learn.
• Providing details about the employee’s strengths and weaknesses, where they need to focus their efforts, and the outcomes they should aim for.
• Considering the full range and potential of career development for a specific employee. This can mean not tunneling on hard skills that produce dramatic transformations in their capabilities but also taking into account soft, interpersonal skills such as communication and organizational abilities.
• Acknowledging progress by linking career development objectives and incorporating new skills to tangible workplace benefits. This could be a higher salary based on their unique contributions or transitioning to a new, more-rewarding role aligned with their career aims.

Connecting skills and learning

Valamis provides you with skills management and learning tools in the same platform, allowing you to tailor your content to existing needs.

1. Identify employees ready for a career development plan

Producing a personalized plan for every employee is a significant undertaking, and for many employees, it may yield little value to the organization. It is always beneficial to focus time and resources where they will be most effective; this could be people who:

• Show leadership potential
• Have talent but seem disillusioned in their current role
• Demonstrate the enthusiasm and drive to learn new skills
• Want to take on new challenges
• Are the highest performers in the organization

Discuss with managers and supervisors from each department to identify candidates who would benefit the most from a dedicated career development plan. Reach out to the candidates and gauge their willingness to work closely with the organization and build a new career development plan.

2. Ask them to prepare information about themselves

While it is a team effort between the organization and the employee, ultimately, the individual will drive the success of their career development plan. Therefore, you should ask them to start preparing information about their current role and what they want to achieve in their career.

Essential questions for employees to ask themselves before working on a career development plan include:

• What are your career goals?
• Where do you see yourself in five or ten years?
• What skills or experiences do you need to achieve your goal?
• What is currently holding you back in your professional life?
• What could your employer do to help your career?

Download a Career Development Plan Template [PDF/ DOCX]

To simplify the process, employers should provide a self-assessment form containing all the information they need to start designing their career development plan. This includes questions identifying the specific skills they currently have and what they will need moving forward.

3. Arrange a meeting

The next step is to arrange a meeting between key stakeholders, the employee themselves, their line manager or direct superior, and often a member of the HR department .

During the meeting, the parties should go over the information compiled in step 2 and begin to define critical components of the career development plan.

This includes a clear vision of the employee’s professional interests and long-term career goals .

While it is generally easier to define start and end points, the aim of the meeting should be to begin to understand the various steps along the way. This means breaking down long-term objectives into a series of shorter-term goals and how they can be achieved.

Gather information on how the employee likes to learn and consider what their future L&D program may look like with input from HR personnel.

4. Assess what is achievable

After meeting with the employee, the organization (in particular, the manager involved) needs to determine what they can achieve while working for them.

That means assessing their current skills, the employee potential, and critically what the organization needs from its workforce. For example, only some employees can have a career progressing to the c-suite.

Consult with relevant stakeholders and evaluate career development objectives that are achievable at the organization.

Identify the resources required to help the employee progress towards their career goals and determine whether they are currently present within the organization. In many instances, you will also need to look externally (i.e., external education and learning experiences).

5. Work together to design the career development plan

Discuss with the employee and learn how the organization could best support their career development, including the potential resources available. Then start working together to produce a realistic career development plan that helps them achieve their goals.

While there are many potential forms a career development plan can take, critical factors you should include are:

• The employee’s starting point (a summary statement followed by their current education, training, and job assignment)
• Long-term career goals (over five years)
• Short-term career goals (less than five years)
• The development activities to put them in a position to achieve these goals

Important tips to remember when designing a career development plan include:

• Personalize – Ensure the final plan is tailored to each employee, considering their unique skillset and what they want to achieve.
• Be Flexible – Remember that an employee’s aspirations will likely change during their career, especially early on. While you can design a great initial career development plan, don’t make the mistake of sticking too closely to it. If the employee finds a new passion or stumbles into an area they excel, don’t be afraid to revise the plan to consider new factors.
• Tracking progress – Every plan needs to consider how the employee’s progress will be monitored. This could include incentives, such as a promotion, upon achieving a certain level of performance or demonstrating the value of the L&D investment made in them.

6. Implement and review

Finally comes the exciting part of implementing the career development plan. Ensure all stakeholders are happy with the program’s current form, then let the development begin.

While you can take steps to support each employee along their career development journey, success has to be driven by the individual.

Make sure to check back with each employee, scheduling regular sessions to determine their progress and review any potential updates to the plan.

Using learning metrics or KPIs, you must also assess employee improvements and training effectiveness. With metrics in place to track behavior, you can determine the return on investment for your L&D efforts.

Read more about metrics in our recent blogs: 10 Valuable Training Metrics to Know How to Measure and Evaluate Training Effectiveness

When to start thinking about a career development plan?

While employees should continuously evaluate their skills, workplace experience, and career progression, there are better times for employers to engage with them to produce a more formal career development program.

Often a good time to start thinking about a career development plan is once an employee begins to impress management . When they have demonstrated their capabilities and become a valuable team member, management and HR should consider working on a personalized career development plan that maximizes an employee’s potential within the organization.

Another good time to start working on a career development plan is after a significant milestone at the company . Perhaps they land a major client or design a new workflow to improve operations. Whatever the specific reason, by setting future development goals, you can keep essential staff motivated and engaged and prevent them from drifting or looking for a new challenge at another company.

Career Development Plan Example (TEMPLATE)

Download our template , which will be a good tool for working on a plan. It helps key stakeholders keep all the data in one place.

You can use the template in different formats.

You might be interested in

Key areas of employee development

Learning and development fundamentals

The meaning of Learning Management System (LMS)

Career and graduate school planning assignment

Let’s use this as an opportunity to think more about what you will do after you graduate from Roosevelt University.  This assignment will have you think more about different career options, and allow you to understand the path needed to arrive at your destination.  Even though there are often many steps in this process, knowing your destination allows you to sequence them over time so you are well informed and can make good choices.

For the purpose of the assignment, I list the questions that you need to answer in your report.  Underneath each, I provide you with tools and links so that you can do the online research needed to provide thoughtful answers.  Most students will use this as an opportunity to describe educational and career pathways that lead to jobs in the mental health profession; however, many of the resources are general so that you can describe how you would prepare for occupations in different fields.

Question 1.  Describe your current career ambitions.  What jobs are you currently considering, and why do you find them potentially interesting?

Your psychology degree can lead to so many different fields, ranging from ones that you may readily think about (like mental health and social services) to those with connections that may be less apparent (like human resources, business, medicine, and education) upon first glance.  The challenge for some students is to narrow the number of choices to find a career path that will be the most meaningful and appropriate for them.

If you are unsure about what career you’d like to pursue, one of the best resources to start your search is O*Net Online.  The site has an Interest Profiler that features a questionnaire to assess your interests. If you want to complete this questionnaire, go to the site and click the “Next” button at the bottom of the window to progress through the 60-item questionnaire. The site will then suggest careers that match your interests. Select Job Zone Four to learn about jobs that generally require a college education, and Job Zone Five for occupations that require graduate school.  Click on careers from each level of education to learn more (there’s a link that reads “See more details at O*NET OnLine” for this information).

If you already know which jobs you’d want to pursue, you can also look up different careers directly on the site to learn more about each without completing the questionnaire.

Also, please download and look over the “Careers for Psychology Majors” document, which lists 300 jobs that are well-suited for students with a psychology major. Some require graduate school (those are highlighted in green), but many do not.  You will see that each of these careers has links underneath that you can use to learn more, too.  If you still need further information about careers in psychology, you can find an overview provided by the American Psychological Association. Remember that psychology is a broad field and has many different areas that you can pursue additional education and training.

Question 2. Based on this additional research, what more did you learn about your potential careers?  Present information about two related career options rather than just one. You should describe, with much greater specificity than in Question 1, what professionals in these chosen areas actually do, what skills they possess, what preparation and training are needed to enter these fields, how much people employed in these fields typically earn, and what the job outlook/projected growth is for these careers.  Use the content from the websites above and be sure to avoid plagiarism and merely copying information.

If you can obtain the career that you ultimately want with your undergraduate degree, then the last question below focuses on what you need to do to be competitive to get that job. You’ll want to do the online research to focus on what experiences and preparation are important to be a successful job applicant and move up the ladder to success.

However, students who want to be therapists, counselors, social workers, or clinical psychologists need graduate-level training to become proficient in providing services.  Students who want to be researchers similarly pursue studies at the Master’s (MA) and doctoral level regardless of their interest area.  There are many resources that allow you to learn more about the steps involved in this process.

The next three paragraphs are written for students who are particularly interested in graduate training in the mental health field.  If this is your area of interest, you can read these articles to help you decide between a Master’s vs. doctorate in clinical psychology , and choosing between a PsyD or a PhD program . Keep in mind that GPA is often a deciding factor, so here are some data that were published several years ago. On average, Psychology Master’s programs have a stated minimum GPA of 2.9 for consideration; the average GPA score for accepted/incoming students in these MA programs is 3.37.  About 40% of applicants are accepted to Clinical Psychology MA programs; the number is 56% for Counseling and School Psychology MA programs.

Doctoral programs are more competitive (especially for PhD programs in comparison to the more practitioner-oriented PsyD programs).  The average minimum GPA required for consideration is 3.1, with an average overall GPA among accepted/incoming students of 3.5 (with a psychology GPA that is slightly above this level).  Keep in mind that the average GPA for PsyD doctoral programs can be less than 3.5 for some schools (especially in “free-standing” PsyD schools that aren’t part of traditional universities), and the average GPA of admitted PhD students will very likely be higher (with those students also having higher GRE scores and previous research and clinical experiences).  Some students do start in an MA program and then apply to doctoral programs if that is their ultimate goal. For those who are interested particularly in clinical psychology, there’s also more information in the CUDCP Guide to Getting In that has extensive advice and resources.

We recently compiled two resources for you to download as part of this assignment as well, if they apply to your intentions.  The first is an Excel spreadsheet that lists all local graduate school programs that provide mental health training . There’s basic information for each along with a link to find out more about them. Be sure to use the tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheet to scroll through the different types of programs.  If you are thinking about graduate school farther away from the Chicago area, I’d suggest starting with a Google search based on the type and location of programs that you’d find most interesting.  The library also has related books for you to explore later listing programs and presenting more detailed information as well.

The second download for you is a PowerPoint slide deck on ways that you can prepare for the GRE exam if you’re applying to a program that requires it.  Virtually all doctoral programs require you to complete the GRE, but only some Master’s programs do. In terms of timeline, you’d need to take your GRE about one year or more before you plan to start graduate school given how the application cycles work.

The American Psychological Association has a video series on preparing and applying for graduate school in psychology that goes into detail about all of the different steps involved in the process.  These review career options, timelines, taking the GRE exam, writing personal statements, and completing applications.  The most comprehensive resource available is probably the Online Psychology Career Center and is definitely worth your attention when you have the time later on to explore all of its links.  These have a broader focus on different areas within psychology. Consider these two sites a preview for now rather than things you’d need to read through.

The information above about graduate school is really tailored to students who will be pursuing advanced training in psychology and in related mental health fields. I’d definitely suggest additional online research if you’re thinking about pursuing a Master’s degree or doctorate in related areas.  We’ve had undergraduates who are interested in education, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and other allied professions. Remember to the look over the “Careers for Psychology Majors” document that I mentioned above if this is consistent with your intentions.

Question 3. Describe your intentions and write out your action plan for future education and/or needed experiences to move ahead. If you will need to go to graduate school for your career, you will want to describe the type programs that have the best fit with your interests and your qualifications. You should be able to list some potential programs that you would think about applying to when the time arrives.  You should know whether and when you would need to take the GRE exam to reach your goal as well (and, if so, how you’d prepare for it based on the options listed in the PowerPoint slide deck).

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Here Are the Air Force's Toughest Jobs That Earn a Bonus, But the Service Won't Explain Planned Cuts

The Air Force has approved 78 jobs to receive special duty assignment pay for 2025, an increase from the 70 for 2024, but also coming in a year when the service is planning to cut funding to the program.

While the service announced the 78 jobs figure, Air Force officials have refused to disclose details of its bonus program, including declining to share the eligible jobs and outline how the cuts to funding would affect the bonuses, claiming it's a security risk to disclose how it uses those taxpayer funds.

Air Force budget documents show that the service requested $4.1 million less for the program next year, down from the estimated $95.2 million allocation for the program in fiscal 2024.

Read Next: 'At What Cost': Guard Chief Argues Border Mission Is Getting in the Way of Warfighting

The bonuses, ranging from $75 to $450 a month, are designed "to compensate enlisted service members who serve in duties which are extremely difficult" or "involve an unusual degree of responsibility in a military skill," according to the service's budget documents. Historically, they have been given to service members who take on assignments from pararescueman to nuclear missile worker.

When Military.com obtained the list of career fields eligible for the bonus through a source, an Air Force official confirmed it was authentic and accurate. But the service declined to provide any details on which jobs lost money, gained money or were cut, citing "security concerns."

The total number of eligible jobs has bounced up and down in recent years, from 103 in 2023, to 70 specialties this year, and now 78 for 2025. Air Force officials did not explain how they plan to expand the bonus to more jobs in October, when the new fiscal year starts, while also planning on cutting the program by millions of dollars.

Ciara Travis, an Air Force spokesperson, told Military.com the figures in the budget documents were just estimates and that the "actual numbers of eligibles in each career field will fluctuate during the year of execution."

Air Force officials in a June press release, without naming the 78 approved specialties, wrote that "10 were initial requests that were certified for the first time, 61 were recertified at their current rate, four increased rate and three decreased rate," adding that one career field was eliminated from the list of jobs that qualified.

That lack of transparency, and citing "security concerns" for something such as how taxpayer funds are being utilized to pay service members, is alarming to government watchdogs.

"You're paying American citizens with American taxpayer dollars," said Dan Grazier, a senior fellow for the National Security Reform Program at the nonprofit Stimson Center in Washington, D.C. "So, the American people have a right to know how that money is being spent."

He said denying that simple information to the public raises red flags.

"This just sounds like basic information," Grazier said. "That just fits within a larger pattern that we've seen over the last four or five, six years, of the Pentagon trying to hide as much information from the public as they possibly can."

A document obtained by Military.com, and confirmed as authentic and accurate by an Air Force official, lists the following jobs as being eligible for the bonus starting this October:

Air Force Careers Eligible for Special Duty Assignment Pay in FY25

2. Human Intelligence

3. Combat Controller

4. 724th Special Tactics Group Ops

5. Project 05

6.150th Special Ops Squadron

7. Air Force Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) Specialists

8. Academy Military Training NCO

9. Military Training Leader

10. Air Force Special Operations Command Air Ops Flight

11. Pararescue

12. Enlisted Professional Military Education Instructor

13. Joint Special Ops Command

14. Tactical Air Control Party

15. Aircraft Battle Damage Repair Expeditionary Depot

16. Project 02

17. Project 01

18. Subsurface Analyst

19. Defense Theater Reduction Agency

20. White House Communications Agency

21. Parachuting Instructor

22. ROTC Instructor

23. Cyber Warfare

24. Recruiter

25. Mission Generation Vehicular Equipment Maintenance

26. Special Warfare Battlefield Airmen Units

27. Flying Crew Chiefs

28. Battle Management Operations

29. USAFE NC3 Cyber Defense Operations

30. Guardian Angel Operational Test

31. Fuels Specialist

32. Test Parachute Program

33. Phoenix Raven Program

34. Defense Attache

35. Special Reconnaissance

36. Air Force Office of Special Investigations

37. AFSOC Deployed Aircraft Ground Response Element

38. Air Traffic Controller

39. Project 03

40. First Sergeant

41. SEAC/CMSAF/CCM

42. 33rd Cyberspace Operations Squadron, Operating Location Alpha

43. National Airborne Ops Support

44. White House Shelter Complex

45. Cyber Intelligence Analysis

46. Presidential Logistics Squadron

47. Explosive Ordnance Disposal

48. ISR Instructor

49. 844th Communications Squadron-Executive Communications Flight

50. Command and Control Operations

51. Nuclear Aircraft Maintenance

52. Security Forces Nuclear Support

53. Missile Maintenance for ICBM/ALC Ops

54. Missile Facility Manager

55. Aircraft Armament System

56. Nuclear Weapons

57. Missile Field Chief

58. Munition Systems

59. Project 04

60. Independent Duty Technician

61. Cyberspace Mission Forces

62. RPA Cyber

63. Special Ops Surgical Team

64. International Enlisted Engagements Manager

65. 33rd Network Warfare Cyber Security Squadron

66. Air Advisers

67. Common Mission Control Center

68. Agile Software Development Designer, Product Manager, Developer

69. Enlisted Pilots

70. Rescue Guardian Angel, Special Tactic, Special Warfare Training or TACP

71. Joint Communications Support Element

72. 437th Operations Squadron, Special Operations, Low Level

73. Respiratory Care Practitioner

74. USAF Honor Guard

75. Fire Protection

76. Academic Faculty Instructor -- Air Force Academy

77. Special Mission Unit

78. 388th Operations Support Squadron

Related: Here Are the 73 Air Force Jobs Offering Big Reenlistment and Retention Bonuses

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Detroit Tigers prospect Jackson Jobe completes rehab assignment, returns to Double-A Erie

CINCINNATI —  Detroit Tigers prospect Jackson Jobe has completed his rehab assignment.

The 21-year-old flamethrower has returned to Double-A Erie, been activated from the injured list and is scheduled to start Friday for the SeaWolves at UPMC Park in Erie, Pennsylvania. He completed three rehab starts with High-A West Michigan in his recovery from a left hamstring strain .

Jobe suffered the left hamstring strain May 1 , then spent more than two months on the injured list leading up to Friday's return. The right-hander ranks as the top pitching prospect in baseball, according to MLB Pipeline .

MORE ABOUT HIM: How Tigers' Jackson Jobe developed into top pitching prospect nearing MLB debut

Before the injury, Jobe posted a 2.16 ERA with 10 walks and 24 strikeouts across 16⅔ innings in five starts for Double-A Erie. He hadn't completed more than four innings in a single start.

Jobe, who turns 22 on July 30, registered a 2.00 ERA with two walks and eight strikeouts across nine innings in three starts with High-A West Michigan. He competed two innings on 29 pitches June 18, three innings on 32 pitches June 23 and four innings on 60 pitches June 29.

He threw a career-high 90 pitches on Aug. 30, 2023.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?: Innings plan for Tigers prospect Jackson Jobe won't be impacted by hamstring injury

The Tigers selected Jobe with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2021 draft . He also missed  several months with a back injury last season, in which he had a 2.82 ERA with 11 walks and 103 strikeouts across 79⅔ innings in 20 starts.

[ MUST LISTEN: Make "Days of Roar" your go-to Detroit Tigers podcast, available anywhere you listen to podcasts ( Apple , Spotify ) ]

Contact Evan Petzold at  [email protected]  or follow him  @EvanPetzold .

Listen to our weekly Tigers show  "Days of Roar"  every Monday afternoon on demand at freep.com,  Apple ,  Spotify  or wherever you listen to podcasts. And catch all of our podcasts and daily voice briefing at  freep.com/podcasts .