The Career Roadmap
A career development plan is a roadmap to help you to achieve your educational goals and advance your career throughout your life. Today job market changes quickly, and students must understand the needs and adjust their training accordingly.
When teaching in Asia, I found that most students never develop a career plan or even know what they are. A student explained: “We are told to go to college, get an education, have a degree, and find a job. That is it, no one talks about plan anything or does anything further.” Another student said: “Our parents will plan a career for us, all we have to do is study.” So I asked them: “Do your parents know about the job market? What skills are in high demand and which skills are no longer needed?” Another student explained: “They only told us to study hard, pass exams and get a college degree and we never question them.” The issues are nobody ever ask the question why there are a high number of unemployed college graduates? Why are college graduates working in jobs that do not even require a college education?
I told these students: “Regardless of what you study, you should take your career development very seriously. You should know what you want to do and how you will get there. The most important part of career development is to understand you are in control of your career and your future. No one is giving you a career but yourself, and you must make sure you have the skills needed to build your career and your future. As college students, you must learn to be independent and take care of yourself. You cannot depend on somebody to take care of you. You must control your destiny and responsible for your action and your career. To do that, you must read more to understand the market trends and what will be needed in the future and adjust your learning accordingly. You should look at what you know now and what skills the industry need and identify if there is any gap and take action to close it.”
“Students must ask: “What kind of job do I want to get? Which area that I want to work? Do I want to move into management? Because advancing a career takes planning. You need to know where you want to go before you can develop a plan to get there. Your plan is not a rigid but must be flexible because it should change when the market changes. Your goals may change as the needs change. You must monitor these changes by reading more, following the technology changes, and well as the market trends. That means you must read more so you can adjust your career road map as you are progressing in your career.”
“For example, a few years ago if you have skills in web development or mobile apps development, you had no problem finding work. Today there are many people with these skills and the needs change to other skills such as “Internet of Things,” “Big Data Analysis,” “Computer security,” etc. Knowing that, you should modify your career plan by focusing more in these new areas to take advantage of new opportunities.”
“A career development plan will help you to go from where you are now to your future career. A career roadmap should have some milestones along the path. These are your career development short goals along with your long journey. You cannot start at the beginning and reach your destination immediately. You should plan your career journey with several milestones such as: go to school, pass exams, graduate, get a job, do well in the job, promote to the next level and so on, etc. Along with your career journey, you also need to identify additional skills that can help you to achieve your goals such as additional skills, more business knowledge and any formal training that you may need. Today most jobs require more than just technical training but soft skills such as time management, team building, communications skills, and problem-solving skills.”
“How far you can move up your career and how fast you get there has more to do with your passion, your commitment, your courage, your work ethic, and additional skills than anything else. Do not just wait for things to happen to you. Do not count the time to help you to move up the next level. Do not wait for someone to help you. Today, you must continue to learn, to improve and compete for the next position. Remember that you and only you can make a difference in your career.”
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
