In January of this year, we had the opportunity to join the PMI Lakeshore Chapter “Career Day” with Scott serving on the Interview Skills panel and Heather working one-on-one with job hunters conducting resume reviews. It was an excellent chance to meet some very skilled and interesting people from various backgrounds all in the process of goal setting.
How does one go about planning career goals?
When working through the planning process and developing your career goals, you begin with evaluation. Consider the following three levels of evaluation:
Self-Evaluation
Do you have a five year plan? Does it include training (not just from a certification point of view)? Does it include education such as Agile, Prince II, new scheduling software, budgeting, supply chain management, procurement, professional soft skills, or leadership skills? This is the time to do some serious self-evaluation. In fact, evaluating your skill set should be done on a regular basis.
In many job interviews the question arises: “What would you say is your greatest weakness?” This question should not come as a surprise. This is a question that should be constantly on your radar especially when it comes to setting the coming years goals.
Market Evaluation
Where is the market heading? What needs exist in the marketplace today and in the future? What skills do you have that can satisfy those needs and what skills do you need to obtain? How do you acquire those skills?
Peer Evaluation
Peer evaluation is another method of analysis that you might want to use to give you an alternate view of your skills. When reaching the end of a project one of the closing tasks should be a peer evaluation. As professionals we should be able to accept the peer review and establish a new baseline that leads to new goals for the next term.
This is also a good time to revisit your professional affiliations and see what training they offer. One of the benefits we experienced while attending the Career Day was the camaraderie and the networking opportunity. It is in this informal environment where we can get a closer view of what peers are doing to improve their position and what they see coming from the markets they are exposed to. Networking and conversation also help professionals share their firsthand experience regarding which companies are good to work with and which ones are not as good.
The constant cycle of Evaluation – Plan – Execute will become habitual after a number of iterations and prove an efficient process that can be easily repeated. Leveraging the peer review and your own self-evaluation will keep your skills sharp and make you more employable.
If your organization needs help in defining goals and objectives, then develop a plan to execute reach out to Heather Cartwright:hcartwright@logixsource.com and let the planning begin.
