Career Planning
To find out which path to choose, I must know where I want to go.
This is an Upgrade Program tool designed to help you in your Career Planning and Management process which can be used to explore market professional
opportunities or to shape a growth path within your current organization.
Remember, this is a continuous process that should be carried out frequently with the main purpose of achieving the goals you established for your career.
Self-knowledge
No one is equal to anyone.
Every human being is an odd stranger.
Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Looking inside, realizing who I am, identifying my strengths, is the first stage of this process, it is where we become aware of our uniqueness as a human being.
Critically and objectively, think about your behavior and answer to the following questions:
- How I behave? How do I see me?
- What word best describes me?
- How do I behave under pressure / stress?
- What are my fears?
- What are my strengths? What skills should I improve?
- What do I value? What are my motivational drivers? Is it more important an organization that gives me development opportunities, or gives me autonomy? The most important thing for me is to feel fulfilled? Or to work in an organization I identify with?
“Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”
Jeff Bezos
And the others, how do they see you?
- How do they describe you?
What role do you play within a team? - How do your colleagues see you?
- What strengths are pointed out to you by others?
What about the areas of improvement?
Ask them! It is part of self-knowledge to know what others think of you!
Reflect on your current situation:
- Do I feel fulfilled? Do I like my profession?
- How does my profession fit into my organization? Is my mission clear?
- Would I rather stay in my organization or look for another opportunity?
- What kind of companies should I look for considering my motivational drivers? Medium or large companies? National or multinational?
- Am I available to live in another geography?
Remember…
- Do your self-assessment, reflect on yourself
- Compare your vision with the vision of two or three people close to you who know you well and give you honest and true feedback
- Reflect on your current situation
- Never forget that your personal interests and motivational drivers should be considered and be framed with the career goals you set
Behave like a lighthouse: look around you…
- What is happening in your organization / market?
- Which bets make sense, given my motivational drivers?
- Are trends/changes expected in my area or organization? Which ones?
- How do these trends/changes affect me? Will new skills be required?
- How can I be more competitive to respond to these trends/changes?
- Will these trends/changes create new opportunities? If not, can I create them?
- What geographic location do I set? What opportunities are there in different geographies?
- What kind of organization do I prefer? What kind of organizational culture do I prefer?
- Who are the key stakeholders?
- For a given job, what are the critical success factors?
- What target should I set?
Bet on knowledge…
Knowledge about the market and the organization you are willing to apply gives you a competitive advantage over other candidates.
If you have already set your target, start collecting information regarding:
Market Information:
Analyze the market and understand the organization’s positioning on it.
Professional Information:
Understand if your profession matches the target. Does it make sense?
Organization information:
Gather information about the organization, this will make you stand out from your competition.
How to reach new opportunities?
- Spontaneous Invitations
- Internal Recruitment Processes
- New business areas / markets / products and services that might be developed by the organization.
- Job advertisements / Spontaneous Applications
- Headhunting
- Recruitment companies
Networking:
> Formal: social networks, events, projects …
> Informal: approach personal and professional contacts, even when they are only indirect contacts
Remember…
- Keep yourself active in social networks (specially Linkedin), have an updated profile and a suiting photo, both professional and good looking
- Be part of social network groups related with your field of expertise (where you might get to know important stakeholders)
- Pay attention to your e-mail and be aware of spontaneous invitations;
- Pay atention to recruitment processes
- Update your knowledge, read articles related to your field of expertise
- Enhance your networking (stay in touch with you contacts, personal or professional, direct or indirect)
Swot Analysis
Based on the analyses and reflections you have previously made about Yourself and the Market, build your SWOT:
Internal Factors
Strengths
What are my strong areas?
What makes me stand out from others?
Weaknesses
What are my areas of improvement?
Where am I not so successful?
External Factors
Opportunities
What are the market trends?
How can I develop to respond to them?
Threats
What scenarios can affect my performance?
What indicators can interfere with my success?
Based on your reflections and research, define:
- What professional goal do you want to achieve?
- What degree of responsibility would you like to achieve?
- What do you want your purpose to be?
- What rewards do you want to get?
- What kind of work do you want to do?
Remember…
- Set SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, real and timed)
- Create a career vision: draw yourself, set everything you want to achieve
in a near future (for example, 2 years) - If necessary, do not be afraid to change your goals: situations change,
we are always on time to change as well
Performance as a Candidate
You must act!
Watch out for your performance as a candidate!
If…
You have already identified your strengths and areas of improvement
You have analyzed the market and defined your objectives…
Make a positive first impression!
- Be on time
- Care for your image and presentation
- Focus
- Have an active and positive attitude
- Show a relaxed, natural, friendly and flexible attitude
- Use an open and transparent speech to trigger dialogue
- Highlight what is relevant
- Be genuine!
Manage the relationship with your stakeholders!
- Build trustworthy relationships
- Share articles of interest
Be alert and follow their career (celebrate and congratulate them in critical times) - Develop a closer relationship (invite them to social events, for example, a brunch)
- Map the relevant stakeholders (those who can reference you and gather attributes that make them good reference targets)
- Define a relationship strategy for each mapped stakeholder (contact frequency, contact type: lunch, breakfast, meeting, email, phone contact, document sharing, event invitations…).
Ensure proper management of a possible exit from the organization!
- Maintain a harmonious relationship with a former boss, colleague or subordinate…
- Always remember that in the future they will always be a potential advocate of your name and will most likely be someone who will be asked for references about your work (including managers).
How you structure your CV is very important!
Build the narrative of your career path and mirror it on your CV:
a)Relevant personal data
- Academic and professional background
- Career achievements
- Languages
- International and multicultural experiences
- Articles, Conferences and Public Interventions
- Hobbies
b)Detailed analysis of career milestones
- Career milestones: company, role, responsibilities and timeline
- Reason of movements between career milestones
- Relevance of experiences (project dimension, role, company, market)
- Personal and business achievements (use numerology to materialize your achievements!)
c)Relevant professional references
d)Current motivations and medium-term expectations: Why are you available for new challenges?
Remember…
- Note how you communicate and relate with others
Invest time in developing your career plan - Take stock of the situation, thinking: where am I? What did I achieve? What do I want do achieve?
- Always take responsibility for the results, analyze them and correct any deviations so you can achieve your goals
- Do not forget to highlight what distinguishes you from other candidates: What are you best at? What are your major strengths?
- Seek feedback regarding your communication style
Prepare a list of references: be ready for all kinds of situations
Remember…
- Do not rush, make wise and though-upon decisions
- Be optimistic
Believe in your skills
Regardless of the results, keep betting on your networking
Be flexible
Keep your proactivity up, the results will come along - Build your CV considering the goals you want to achieve and the impact you want to make
Ensure your CV is clear and concise, organized and structured and tailored to the desired challenge/objective
Be resilient: don’t give up!