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Will a Careers Plan Help You?
Should
you create a detailed careers plan to achieve success at work, or are
you more likely to end up in a job you enjoy if you just see where life
takes you? Jobsite finds out.
Does failing to plan really
mean planning to fail? Sometimes forward planning pays off, but
creating a rigid careers plan before you’ve gained valuable life
experience isn’t necessarily a good idea. If you’re really not sure
about the sort of career you might be interested in, it might be better
to gain some experience of working life and an understanding of your
own character before deciding upon a careers plan.
“To find your dream career,
you need a very clear vision,” says Steve Davison, life coach and
author. “You need to write down your vision in clear language,
preferably with some emotional words thrown in like ‘amazing’ or
‘fantastic’, and you need to know every last detail of what you want.
Once you’ve done that, achieving what you want is relatively straight
forward.”
However, to develop a
successful career vision, you need to find out about your own
personality and interests. “It’s important to gain a broad
understanding of yourself before trying to figure out your vision,”
says Davison. “What really interests you and gets you going?”
Michelle Bayley, professional
life and career coach for Find Your Way Coaching, agrees – and believes
individuals shouldn’t create a careers plan before they have a good
understanding of themselves.
“To be successful in your
career, and in life, it’s vital to find out about yourself and your
interests,” says Bayley. “If people tell me they haven’t got a clue
about what they want to do in life, I always tell them that they must
first find out who they are. It’s important to get a clear idea about
your interests, both inside and outside of work, and try to determine
what really motivates you and gets you out of bed in the morning. This
should have nothing to do with money as, although we all have bills to
pay, finding out about your ideal career should be about much more than
this.
“One thing I ask clients is:
‘What if you were locked in a bookshop for a weekend? What section
would you find yourself gravitating towards?’ Also, I often ask people
to revisit interests they had as a child of seven or eight. When people
don’t like the job they’re doing, they lose touch with the interests
they had years ago. Think about what really fascinated you as a child
and held your interest.”
It may be better to have no
careers plan than impose one on yourself before you really know your
interests and skills. Fredo Huxley-Johnston, who now works in events
management, imposed a very rigid careers plan on himself before he had
a clear understanding of what he really enjoyed. “When I applied for
university, I was absolutely certain I wanted a career in law.
Basically, I’d always thought of myself as quite intelligent, so after
reading a few careers books that suggested people in law needed to be
logical thinkers I decided I’d make a really good barrister. It wasn’t
long into my law degree that I began to really struggle. I just wasn’t
interested in the subject matter, but because I’d made this plan in my
head it was difficult to back out. I should have changed courses to
something more media orientated, but I didn’t – just because I had a
plan and didn’t want to change it. I’m pleased I got my law degree, but
I don’t work in law now. I’ve got a three-year old son, and when he’s
older I’m going to tell him not to plan so soon. You should try a few
things out before making any decisions. I’m still not sure I’m in the
right career now, so how I thought I knew enough to develop a career
plan in my early twenties is beyond me.”
In addition to discovering
your interests, it’s also a good idea to gain experience of different
workplaces before carving out your careers plan – and a sensible way to
do this is through work experience.
“Work experience is a good
way to experience first-hand the kind of work you think you want to
do,” says Jay Clifton, a programme co-ordinator for Gulliver’s
Experiences. “People can spend a year doing a particular vocational
course at an adult learning college, for example, only to find that
once out of the classroom and doing the work in a day-to-day way it’s
not really their thing. So taking the plunge into work experience, even
if it turns out not to be what you hoped for, is a good way of getting
a reality-check about a particular field, and, through that,
narrowing-down options and finding your direction.”
Work experience can also
offer valuable CV material, even if it helps you decide that a
particular career path isn’t for you. “There are probably many young
people we place in work experiences who work in a different field later
on,” says Clifton. “But even so, what work experience shows on their CV
is a certain competency and willingness to adapt to new things, and
usually the references they get help them towards their career goals.”
Those between jobs, or
entering work for the first time, might also consider temp work as a
useful way to check out different working environments and see what
might fit.
“If you’re at an early stage
of your career and have no idea about your interests, getting a taste
of different types of work and different industries can be a good way
to find out what you’re good at,” says Bayley. “It’s all about finding
the right match for you. Don’t randomly apply and ‘react’ to vacancies,
but do try things out you think might be a good match. Then use these
experiences to focus your jobhunt, or your self-employment choices.
Most importantly, get out there and do something. Planning is one
thing, but taking action is the key to a great life and a great career.”
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