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Ch.
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Developing Your Career Goals |
How the Planning Process Works
| Career
planning works much like any other planning process. First you define
your goals, then you set the objectives that will get you there.
And lastly you initiate your plan and make it happen. This booklet
is designed to assist you in defining your dream and developing a plan
that will make it happen. It is important to develop a plan in which
you can feel as though you are the architect. It may be easier to
let someone else do the planning, but in the end it will not be as satisfying
as the one you design yourself. You may already have decided what
you are planning to do and have a written plan to execute it. If
so this booklet will not cause you to re-design your present plan, just
make sure that it is complete and achievable. If you have not developed
such a plan, then now is the time.
This Career Planning Module
has five major segments:
Each of the segments is built upon the previous and continues to give you more information with which to develop your career decisions. You may already have some of these segments completed and will only need to fill in the blanks or update your information. Chapter One will help you understand how to define your dream and develop goals that make it a reality. You will find it easier to do career planning if you have a thorough understanding of why you are doing each step. Many of the past graduates of the HRM program have said to me, "If I had known in the beginning what I know at the end I would have taken the first several segments of the career project more seriously" "I have now gone back and done it over again." My suggestion to you is to make this effort a major part of this course and you will end up with a professional plan that you can rework for the rest of your life. Chapter Two guides you through self assessment of whether your dreams fit who you are, your personality, your values and ambitions. This step is necessary because you are the person for whom the plan is designed and it should fit you well. If you had a major piece of clothing designed for you, the tailor would take exact measurements of your body to make sure that the clothing fits you well. For if it is poor fitting, you will not enjoy it or use it to the extent that you would if it fit well and looked good on you. So it is with career planning, the plan needs to fit you well and should make you feel confident when working toward your professional career. The second chapter helps you take some personal measurements in relationship to your career dream. Chapter Three takes you out and into the professional world to look first hand at the nature of jobs there. There is no better way to find out whether you want to be working in a career area than exploring and interviewing professionals working in the field. Chapter four also helps you look at the industry by reading from media materials detailing what others have to say about the industry and its future. You will also read current specialized information from industry journals and periodicals. After having completed the degree program, this combination of information gathering sources is the one that students talk the most positively about. It seems to have given them a first hand and live view of the job market that they could identify with. Chapter Four is where you put it all together. You will need to exercise some desecration making skills in this exercise. This means that you will need to discriminate between things you like and things you find less attractive. To create a career plan that:
The process you are about to use in this career planning exercise is one that you will use in part or whole over and over again as you re-focus your goals in your life. You do not today make a career choice and then follow it for the rest of your life. You change as a person and the world around you is constantly changing. This causes you to continually grow and develop in your professional career.
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| Copyright © 2000 MyCareerPlan, author Jim Hogan |