Put Your Career Plan on Paper

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There is a reason why all life and career coaches ask you to have things written down. Your ideas may sound great but putting them on paper make them real. If you are going to take responsibility for your career you have to start with a strategy to obtain your goal. Think of yourself as someone standing in a long line for a bank loan. No bank will ever finance a project without a well written business plan and calculation of costs. No financial institution will back up an idea just because you think it’s a good one. They will need documents to prove that market research has been done. No one will advance you money without knowing when to expect the return and how big is the expected profit.

Your career strategy is like a business plan. If you are having trouble putting your ideas and dreams on paper – look at my suggestions below.

1. SWOT Write down the answers to four important points. This is known as SWOT Analysis.

What are your strengths: what is it that you do best? What are your abilities? What can you bring to the table? What is it that you can offer your new company? How will they benefit from hiring you?

What are your weaknesses? What bad habits do you have? Can your attitude stand in the way of your success and the success of your potential employer? What abilities and skills are you lacking?

What opportunities are there? With the current crisis, do you think that a chance has opened for you to jump the gravy train? Or maybe you are being pushed to start own business? What external causes are pushing and directing you?

What are the threats? What dangers are associated with the recession and current market situation? What external conditions can make it difficult to reach your goal?

Remember, you are writing things for yourself. Be harsh and be frank. This is not an interview where you have to hide under “I lack motivation” when all you want to say is that you are lazy. Define those four factors with honesty. SWOT analysis is going to be helpful for defining your goals. Your strengths combined with opportunities will equate to helpful agents. For example – if you are a doctor who has worked heavily with new drugs and you know that global pharmaceutical companies are looking for Drug Researchers – you are in a win-win situation. Weakness’ and threats combined are harmful agents and generally a bad sign. If you are an engineer in automotive industry and your biggest weakness is fear of failure – you are in trouble.

Your goal number one is to use your strengths and improve your weaknesses. Your goal number two is to utilize opportunities and work out the threats.

2. Define the industry. Before you go about planning a colour of wallpaper for your executive office, start from planning what industry you want to stay with. If you are a keen observer and you are up to date with news you know what firms are doing better and what firms are on the verge of bankruptcy. Write down name of a few companies that interest you most and then line pros and cons of joining each of the enterprises. Basing on the current market, predictions of researches and your intuition write down a short paragraph with predictions for each of the companies. Now look at your calculations and see which environment might be best for you?

3. Clarify your desired position. Once you know where find out who do you want to be. Aim high but be realistic. If you want to become a CEO of Microsoft give yourself quite some time and remember that Steve Ballmer is not a quitter. Don’t indulge yourself in a vision of becoming a Lead Developer in Sun Microsystems if you still have to call helpdesk because your computer is not working just to find out it was not plugged in.

4. Describe where you’re at. Describe your current position and the industry you are in now. List your responsibilities and duties. Put on paper your achievements, your skills and your certifications.

5. Bridge the gap. You have now ascertained the future you and the present you. What you need is the bridge to connect those two. What are the vital things that will bridge the gap between your current role and your perfect job? What do you have to change to reach your target? What skills are missing? All your strategy is about closing that gap.

6. Use a timetable. The correct timetable is essential. It may be the matter of days to re-do your outdated certification and a matter of weeks to finish a seminar. But you will need months to polish your language skills and years to obtain university degree. You will also have to prioritize which things you have to do now and what can be left for later.

Separate your timetable into manageable bite-size chunks, I suggest three months periods. Every quarter you will do a review, much like the revaluation you have at work. Compare your schedule with your actual achievements. Don’t let yourself fall behind the plan and reward yourself every time you exceed your own scheme. With quarterly check up you will be able to monitor the progress of your agenda.