Spring has sprung, and it’s a great time to take another step towards your professional dreams and goals. Where are you now in your career, and where would you like to go in the next five years? While creating a career plan might seem like a daunting task, it will serve as a reliable roadmap offering a variety of benefits. For instance, it will help you:
- Make better choices. When you know where you’re headed – even if it’s five years down the line – you can make well-informed decisions. This is important considering even the smallest choices can potentially have a big impact on your career. Spend your time applying and working in jobs that satisfy your career goals.
- Avoid career mistakes. Whether you’re searching for a new job or looking for a leg up in your company, it’s easy to get sidetracked by the offer of more money or better benefits. While those are all important factors to be considered, by having a career plan, you’ll have a clearer sense of the kinds of jobs and opportunities that will best serve as a steppingstone to your ultimate goal.
- Network more effectively. Networking is a critical part of career success – but it’s more about quality and less about quantity. Having a career plan in place will help you identify the key players you need to connect with to achieve your career plan objectives. In addition, it will ensure you don’t waste time networking in the wrong places, whether in person or online.
- Gain more control. Once you have a plan in place, you’ll feel more in control over your career. While you might not be exactly where you want to be at the moment, having a career plan and an idea of a dream job will help you determine the skills you have to acquire and the steps you need to take to move forward.
Clearly, there are many valuable benefits to creating a career plan. So once you have yours in place, how do you put it into action in a job hunt? For starters, use it when you’re searching out job leads. It will help you spot those opportunities that are in line with what you’ve defined in your plan.
In addition, as you’re looking, focus on developing in areas that will help you reach your career goals. Whether it’s through an online course, continuing education seminar, or classes at a local college, you should regularly be making strides to enhance your skill set in a way that makes sense for your career plan.
Along the way, reflect, assess and realign your career plan as needed to stay on track. This will help you maintain some flexibility as new opportunities arise while staying motivated as you work to achieve your career goals.
The bottom line? Creating an effective career plan takes time. However, it’s an essential tool that will set you up for a more successful future and set you apart from other candidates in your field during your job search.
Looking for jobs that help you meet your career goals?
Call Future Force. As one of the leading temporary hiring agencies in Orlando, we can give you access to a variety of flexible and rewarding work opportunities, so you can sample a range of industries and find the one that’s best-suited for you and your career goals. Contact us today to learn more or get started.
