5 Steps to Creating a Career Development Plan that Works

When it comes to accomplishing your career goals, there’s no better way to stay on track than through creating a development plan. By taking the time to sit down and write out your goals, as well as how to achieve them, you’ll be one step closer to success even before you put your plan into action.

While many people like the idea of creating a career development plan, they aren’t always easy to make. What should you include? Is there a certain order you should put things in?

To help guide you in your quest to create a career development plan that will actually work, here’s a quick glimpse at what a career development plan is and the steps to create one. 

A career development plan is essentially a guide to how you want to drive your career. It can include specific promotions that you hope to obtain, or it can be a pathway you follow to get from your current position to your dream job, whether this is a certain management position or job location.

Career development plans help you move towards your goal of improving your career. Whether these goals are short-term or long-term isn’t important as both can be included in your development plan. The important part is that you have set career improvement goals to help you get started in creating your plan.

Keeping a career development plan will help you stay motivated and encourage you to continue moving towards your goals. With a concrete plan on how to get there, you’ll find it’s easier to take the necessary steps.

In order to create a career plan that will actually help you get from your current position to your career goals, you need to be honest about where you’re currently at. 

At the very beginning, take a moment to think about your past experience, what you enjoy doing, your current skills, and what motivates you. You should also make note of your current workplace position and what education you currently have.

While recognizing what motivates you and what doesn’t may not seem like a vital step in the process, it is. In the future, you may become discouraged or lose sight of why you’re working towards a specific goal. Having your motivation written down gives you something to refer back to.

You certainly can’t expect to accomplish your career goals if you don’t know what they are. Determining your goals will be what drives the rest of your career development plan, but you don’t need to rush through this. Take some time to think about what your dream job is and where you want to be in however many years.

You may only have one or two big goals, and that’s alright! Within each of these goals, you’ll write down smaller goals that will help you work towards accomplishing your big goals. Small goals will also help you feel like you’re getting closer to the finish line and keep you motivated.

If you don’t set a timeline for yourself, you won’t be able to gauge how close you are to achieving your goals. When you’re creating your career development plan, be sure to include a timeline, whether this is five, ten or fifteen years! At the very end, you should have met (or even exceeded) your goal.

Similarly, having deadlines beside certain milestones and smaller goals can help you stay on track. Whatever your goal is, it can be difficult to stay on track if you don’t have smaller deadlines to follow.

You’re at the starting point, not in the middle of your plan or nearing the end. Because of this, it’s completely normal to have gaps that need to be filled in such as missing education, not enough experience, or poor soft skills.

Be honest with yourself and determine where you need to improve as well as how you plan to. Take a look at some of the most important soft skills and use this to analyze what skills you have and which you need to improve.

During this step, it can be helpful to consult with professionals. Talking with someone who understands what the typical requirements are for your dream job or position can help you create a more comprehensive plan for getting there.

If your goal pertains to holding an executive position, speaking with executive resume writers can not only help guide you through their experience, but they can create an executive resume and other professional portfolios to help you land that dream job.

Finishing your career development plan isn’t the last step in creating one, believe it or not. Even once you’ve finished your plan and you’re confident in how to proceed, you’ll likely find yourself making adjustments and re-evaluating your plan as you move forward.

It’s important to keep yourself accountable while you work through your plan. This is why having a timeline written out is so important and speaking with other professionals can help. You’ll need to track your progress and be honest with yourself about how things are going so that you can re-evaluate and adjust your plan as needed.

While there may be some goals that are more common or traditional than others, there’s truly no limit on what you can set for your career goal. Whether you want to earn a certain salary, land a top-executive position, or just explore different job locations, measuring the success of your career isn’t limited and neither is your career development plan.

In creating your plan, you’re free to choose whichever method, goal, and timeline you want. Sure, most people may choose either five or ten year plans, but choosing to make your plan longer or shorter isn’t bad! When it comes right down to it, it’s your career, your plan, and your choice.