Long Term Career Planning a Strategy
A long term career plan is more necessary now than ever before, as work patterns have changed, and people are more likely toswitch jobs, and even careers, during their working lives, than ever before.
Though a more flexible labour market makes career planning a more complex process, it also makes it more important. A long term career plan is a form of goal setting, there has been a lot of research into the advantages of goal setting, and plan writing, mainly forsports and business management. The most famous piece of research on setting written goals for career success, is the story of the Yale class of 1953, which claimed that the 3% who had written down their goals had been far more successful than the rest. This story hasnow generally been accepted as a myth, however other research does suggest that writing down, and identifying, goals brings success in achieving them.
It is, in any case, with or without research, an obvious truth, as anyone who has written and used a shopping list, or a to do list, will know that with a list things will be more likely to get done than without.
Though most research around this area has been done for sports and business, Dr Edwin Locke's Goal Setting theory of Motivation,written in the 1960's, for businesses, can be adapted for personal career planning use.
He argues that specific, realistic and challenging goals are more motivating that easy, generalised and vague ones. Self-efficacy, the confidence in ability to achieve goals, and commitment to goals is also important, and self set goals are more likely to be committed to than one set by another person.
These ideas offer a good way of beginning the process of creating a long term career plan. Though self-efficacy is probably an even more important issue for personal career planning, than for setting goals in a business environment, but is not included in the SMART model, outlined below, but is important in effective career planning, as lack of it can distort our personal goals.
Self efficacy is an individuals belief in their abilities to achieve a goal they have set themselves. Albert Bandora, a psychologist, published a paper in 1977 called Self-Efficacy: Towards a Unifying Theory of Behavioural Change, in which he put forward his theory thatself belief was essential for achieving goals.
His argument was that people with a strong sense of self-efficacy enjoy challenging tasks, are more committed to the activities they take part in, and recover more quickly from setbacks.
Whereas people with lower self-efficacy avoid challenging tasks, believe difficult tasks are beyond their capabilities, and focus on their personal failings, and expect negative outcomes.
A lack of self efficacy usually develops in childhood and for anyone who feels that this may be a problem, it is worth seeking help to resolve this, before embarking on long term career planning, as goals will be distorted by a avoidance of challenging tasks, and self doubt. The biggest barriers to finding the right employment path lies in this area, and identifying negative thought processes that get in the way of achieving goals, is very helpful.
The Locke goal setting ideas then eventually became what is now known as the SMART goals. With the assistance of Dr Gary Latham,they developed five fundamental principles,the four c's, clarity, challenge, complexity commitment, and feedback. Which then evolved into S.M.A.R.T., a mnemonic for enthusiastic goal setters, using the words specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely.
The Locke and Latham original five, however, may be better for career planning. Feedback and regular reviews are useful. Feedback will come from other people, whereas a review is carried out by the writer of the plan, themselves.
For those uncertain about which career path to take there are alarge number of free self-assessment teststhat can be used online, such as the Myers-Briggs Personality Test. These tests can be useful.
Creative Visualisation, though less rigorously tested, can form an enjoyable part of career planning. Imagining the perfect future home, job, and partner can help in the identification, and achievement of goals, therefore visualisation as a useful part of career planning and should not be ruled out.
Planning a careerwill involve research, jobs that require qualifications will require research into how to access training. Some careers can be specific to certain areas, and re-location may be necessary. It is also good to do background reading on trends in a chosen area of employment, and keep up to date with what is happening. Resources available locally may help in career planning, some areas may offer free career advice, and local libraries may have information. There are also a lot of online resources available.
A long term career plan should involve both strategic long term and short term planning. The short term having more clearly identified goals. The longer term aspects of the plan will need to be more adaptable than the short term ones, as predicting the short term future is far easier than the long term future, and setting more specific short term goals is appropriate.
It is worth mentioning here research on setting objectives, from education. Which has shown that objectives should not be too narrow, atoo narrowly defined goal can limit learning in education. A personal judgment has to be made here, trying to become President is a narrowly defined objective, rarely, or if ever, achieved by accident. So a very specific narrow long term goal can be useful for a difficult target, but on the other hand ability to adapt is also useful, as vacancies for presidents are limited.
However, as the writing of lists was earlier on advocated as a good way of achieving a goal, there now follows a list of what to consider when creating a long term career plan.
To do this, rather than incorporating the S.M.A.R.T. goal setting techniques, the original Locke and Latham four c's have been used, plus feedback. Though attainable and realistic have been included from SMART with the proviso that long term career planning may often benefit from aspiring to the unrealistic and unattainable, but not always.
clarity
challenge
complexity
commitment
feedback
realistic
self efficacy
attainable
goal visualisation
research
adaptability
self knowledge
regular reviews
relevance of goals to time period
The shape of the plan depends on personal preference, but like a good business plan a written long term plan offers a route to follow. The career plan should, though, be treated more like a road map, than a sat nav, as too rigid compliance with sat navinstructions can cause accidents, and adaptations should be made when conditions clearly show that a change of direction is needed.
