I was at a great WiN-Durham meeting recently that focussed on career development and I thought I’d pass along some of the excellent points made to help you with your own career development.

The session started off with a great definition of career development:

Managing your career either within or between organizations, as an ongoing, lifelong process to help you learn, make improvements and achieve more in your career.

The key point here is that managing your career is up to you.  You need to take responsibility for the management of your own career.

So what are the steps to career development?

1. Know yourself. Make lists of your interests, values, skills, assets, resources and personality traits.
2. Explore possibilities. Research, try things out, narrow your choices and find a few that fit.
3. Make choices. Set goals, develop a plan and address barriers.
4. Make it happen. Put your plan into action, learn along the way and achieve your goals.

Easy enough, now what resources do you use to help you get through all these steps?

• Your boss. Although your boss can’t manage your career for you, if you take the opportunity to honestly talk about your goals and career aspirations he or she can help you. Ask for feedback on your performance and most importantly, act on that feedback. Ask to be stepped up and to be considered for special project opportunities.
• Education or skill upgrades. Take advantage of night classes or on-line courses that might help you achieve your goals. There are also lots of business books out there that can be a great resource.
• Network. Join employee resource groups and get involved with company activities. Often these are great places to “rub elbows” with people higher up in the organization.
• Check out your company’s competency list that defines leadership within your organization. Use this list to assess your own personal performance. Ask a couple of peers, your supervisor and another manager in the organization to sit down with you and help you determine your strengths and weaknesses. Listen and act upon the suggestions for improvement and how you might integrate these suggestions into your day-to-day work.
• Talk to your Human Resources department for help. They will have various books and tools that can help you be successful.
• Find a mentor. Find someone who will help you with your development plan and provide you with honest and constructive feedback on your progress.

Good luck. Don’t forget to stop along the way and celebrate your successes. Share your success stories with others by leaving a comment about how career development planning has helped you in your career.