Career Planning in your Organisation i.e. the place in which you work, is not always the responsibility of your manager or the organisation. Yes, the organisation is responsible to provide the environment, culture and resources to help you plan your career, but at the end of the day it is you who has to use the environment, the culture and the resources in which you work in to achieve your career aspirations. For the organisation to support and help you achieve your career aspirations, they (career aspirations) need to be linked to and have an adverse positive effect on the bottom line of the organisation i.e. deliver on sustainable competitive advantage.
So, what can you do to plan your career in the place in which you work in?
- Further education, training, learning & development
- Work with a mentor
- Work with a career guidance counselor
- Look on your carer as ladder
- Look on your career as a web
1. Further education, training, learning & development
Check back when was your last upskilling, re-education, training course? What I mean here is a course that was \’curriculum year\’ i.e. September to June. Your employer is and will put a lot of weighting on what their employees have been doing in the past three to five to seven years to stay up-to-date in their area of expertise and be planning for the future needs of the organisation.
2. Work with a mentor
A Mentor is a person who works in your organisation and has \’been there and done that\’ in your area of expertise. You formally meet with this person on on-the-job / work projects, challenges and problems daily, weekly and / or monthly. They mentor you on how to deal with these, while indirectly helping you with your career progression in the organisation.
3. Work with a Career Guidance Counselor
A Career Guidance Counselor is someone you can work with external to your organisation, who helps you in your career planning, management and development. This can be a once-off meeting or a number of meetings over a few weeks, where together you put a career plan on paper of where you are now, where you want to be and then how to get there.
4. Look on your career as a ladder
Ask yourself the question, \’Are you career orientated or job orientated? If you are the former read on, if you are the latter, see the next section (5.). Career orientated means that you want to get to the top of your profession and be the best you can be. So knowing how to get to the next level up and next level up and next level up again is what you need to know and do whatever you have to do to get there. How did the people who are currently in these roles get there, I wonder?
5. Look on your career as a web
Web orientated means that you don\’t have much interest in going upwards in the organisation, but you do want to gain specific experience. Looking at your career as a web is all about working at the same level as you are now, but in different departments in the same organisation or in sister organisations. With this experience, you can continue \’webbing\’ or indeed afterwards look at \’laddering\’.