Your Career Action Plan

Once you have completed a career aptitude assessment to identify your skills and abilities, you may also want to assess your career interests. Following that, you should explore and research career fields to narrow your career path. You should also determine your career personality so you will be ready to begin your career plan. Simply put, a career plan is an outline of your career goals, your skills and interests, and the required steps to reach your career goals.

Starting your Career Plan

Before you start planning your career path, you will need to complete an analysis of your skills and career interests to determine the best matching career options. Once that is completed, you are ready to begin planning. Make sure you reserve a block of time to focus on your career plan requirements. Be realistic about the skills and education you will need to achieve your career goals. Here are some suggestions:

• Write down your career goals. This helps you focus more clearly on the possibilities available to you. This may be a specific job, such as dentist or teacher, or more general, such as medicine or education.
• List the abilities and requirements of the career. These can be things like creativity, writing skills or special licensing. WiseChoice offers tools to help you locate careers that interest you and see the requirements they have.
• Take note of your current skills, interests and experience. This will help you determine the areas you will need to improve in to reach your goals.
• Determine what the requirements are to reach your profession. Break it down by:
  • Education
  • Required skills
  • Experience/Internships
• Equally important is to write down any barriers to meet these requirements. For example, what if you don't get that key internship or you need to extend your college education one year? By thinking ahead of possible bumps in the road, you can plan next steps in advance and still keep your career goals in sight.
• Finally, develop your career plan. Add target completion dates for the education and skills required to meet your career goals.

A career plan is a great way to stay focused on your career path, and it can also help you avoid getting side-tracked when the path may seem long and tedious. If your plan includes being active in clubs and organizations it may also help you find friends with similar interests who will encourage and support your goals. When you have your plan in writing you can be confident you are taking the right steps towards your goals while saving time and money, and alleviating anxiety.