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How to Write a Professional Development Plan

StrategyDriven Professional Development Article | How to Write a Professional Development Plan

It doesn’t matter if someone has long-term or short-term goals. The path to success always comes with a proper plan. That is the reason why a development plan may help people reach their goals more effectively. Yet, many people don’t know how to write a professional development plan. There are a couple of stages they need to go through to complete the process successfully.

First Step: Remain Objective and Analyze Yourself

People need to ensure they understand their weaknesses and strengths. However, it is not only important to improve the skills that will bring them a job or business success. They also need to have in mind their personal characteristics and habits that can potentially become a distraction.

That especially counts when we talk about transferable skills. For instance, organizational skills are the ones that need to be at the highest level. People need to organize their time properly, design their workspace to make it inspirational for working, etc. If they need to improve that, they should write it down in their professional development plan.

Second Step: Identify the Career Goals You Want to Achieve

There is no universal definition of the term success. For some people, that would be the improvement of financial stability. On the other hand, others would focus on flexible work hours, expanding a business to another country, etc.

Still, people often make a common mistake. Long-term goals are inspirational, and they motivate people to work hard every day. However, it is not going to be enough to say “I want to become rich one day”. Every long-term goal contains many mini-goals that people need to pass.

For instance, let’s imagine that an entrepreneur wants to become a content writer and start a personal blog. He realized that it can be a good way to improve the brand identity of his business. However, his content writing skills are not at the highest level. Short-term goals would be the improvement of SEO knowledge, vocabulary, etc. In other words, a person should improve the weaknesses determined in the previous step.

Third Step: Finding the Best Method to Reach the Goal

The long-term and short-term goals may seem impossible to achieve at first glance. However, with hard work, persistence, and a good plan, all the goals become achievable.

Let’s use an example of a person that wants to improve his graphic design skills. One way to do that is to subscribe to a course published by a professional designer. Despite that, finding a mentor that is willing to share his knowledge and skills is also an excellent alternative. Whichever option people choose, they have to be sure it will bring them positive results. That is the reason why they have to research all the available options.

Fourth Step: Determine the Deadlines

Planning a professional development without a proper deadline is impossible. However, the timeline needs to be realistic and motivational at the same time. For instance, if someone started a small business three months ago, it is hard to believe that person will be an owner of a multinational company for one year.

The purpose of the deadlines is to remind people they should be self-discipline. Making excuses and delaying completing some duties will never help anyone to make professional development.

Fifth Step: Check the Plan Once Again

After going through the previous four steps, people should write down their plans. However, that doesn’t mean people should start their journey without double-checking everything.

All the goals need to be SMART. For those that do not know, SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. In that way, they will determine whether a certain part of the development plan requires changes or improvement. It is essential to realize immediately if some pieces of information are missing as well.

Final Thought

The development plan will not mean anything if its creator deals with a lack of self-discipline. Whatever people write down, they need to respect it until the end. With a high level of discipline and a clear and realistic development plan, success will come.


About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Linda FergusonLinda Ferguson started her career in a local company as a content writer 5 years ago. Now, she is the CEO of https://subjecto.com/essay-samples/ thanks to her determination and complete dedication to work. Linda has always been passionate about academia and writing. Besides her busy work schedule, she manages to find time for attending conferences that keep her up to date with the latest news in the industry.

How To Ensure Your Resume Stays Top Of The Pile

StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article |Resume|How To Ensure Your Resume Stays Top Of The PileIn order to get the job you want, you need to have the skills that are required. You need to be able to fulfill the employer’s needs and do what they want. At the end of the day, you’re going to be a valuable cog in their well-oiled machine. If you don’t have what’s necessary, then you won’t get picked – it’s quite simple. There is another thing you need to do, though. You must ensure that you’re looking very attractive to them. Before they actually choose you, they need to fall completely in love with you and realize that there is nobody better for the position. If you can do that, then you’re golden.

You’ll get a chance to do this in an interview and during a trial period, but before any of those take place, you’ll need to grab their attention with your written communication. Your resume (or CV elsewhere) should be eye-catching and to the point. They need to love what they see and what they read. Here’s how you can make sure yours stays top of the pile for good:

Don’t Overthink It And Be Too Extravagant

It’s easy to want to write an awful lot about how good you’re going to be for them. While it’s counterintuitive, you’re going to want to write the fundamentals about yourself and leave it there. Too much detail and too much bragging won’t do it. It’s not an awards ceremony or a professional development plan; it’s a resume. They might become bored with all of the details or see it as trying too hard.

Get All The Right And Relevant Details In There

There’s nothing quite like reading something that wastes your time. For some reason, a lot of people like to put information in their resume that is just completely irrelevant to the situation.
Make sure you’re talking yourself up, but don’t talk about something that nobody really knows nor cares about. If you’re applying for a mental health position, then perhaps you should mention a masters of counselling degree, but don’t talk about something that is the antithesis of the profession.

Think About The Way It’s Presented

The look of it matters a lot, too. The content needs to be on point, but if it is presented in a terrible fashion, then minds are going to be made up very quickly. The way you present your resume says a lot about how you are and how you act as a person. Make sure they are excited to meet you.

Check Over For Mistakes A Few Times

The chances are that you will have made a few errors throughout the writing. That’s okay as it’s something everyone does every single day. Just make sure you look over it all a few times in order to wipe out any issues. You never know, there may be a zero tolerance for this kind of thing at the firm you’re looking to work in – they may see a small error and throw it in the trash immediately.