Business Plan 101 Your Career Viewpoint careers advice blog

Business Plan 101 Your Career Many of us prepare business plans as a fundamental part of our jobs. However Im often struck by how diligently business leaders prepare these plans for their businesses but completely fail to produce one for themselves and their own career. Thats odd. None of us expect our businesses to be successful without some forward planning and thought, so why should we assume our careers will be successful without the same degree of rigour and planning? Its not necessarily hard to start this process though. Approach your career plan just like youd approach any other form of business plan. A simple 4-stage process may help get your thoughts down on paper. Understand the features, benefits and value that your product brings to the market. Thats you! In doing this, think hard and honestly about what you enjoy in a job, what aspects you dislike, your personality and how that adds value to an organisation, your career achievements to date and your unique skills and experience. Deeply understand your market. Thats your career opportunities. Write down the options that exist with your current employer and what additional skills you could gain that would open up more options. Research other organisations in your preferred sector and critically assess whether your skills and experience helps solve them a problem. Be brutally honest about this though. If you arent, the only person you are kidding is yourself. Now youve defined your offering and mapped it to the market, set some long term objectives. I would start with a 10 year horizon and ask yourself what youd really like to be doing by then. You may conclude you wish to be the Finance Director of a large organisation, or the Head of Research for example. Above all, be aspirational as its 10 years out. The trick then is to make it more real and executable and to do that, break it down into shorter, more manageable objectives. Where would you need to be in, say, 5 years to be on track with your long term goals. To eventually be a Finance Director, youd probably need to be the FD in an operating division and/or a Financial Controller first for example. Then make the timeframe shorter still and think about what you need to be doing in the next 1-2 years to make progress. Finally, prepare your action plan. Exactly what will you be doing over the next 12 months to move forward. Take proactive steps with your current employer to determine suitable opportunities to gain wider experience and create more options for yourself. Find the courses of study you may need to get the skills your career plan dictates. Use your marketing skills to position your own personal brand better. That could be a distinctive and polished CV or LinkedIn profile, broadening your network both in the physical world as well as via social media, or creating the relationship you may need with recruiters in your field. Practice your interview and presentation skills. Above all though, believe in yourself. If you understand what you offer and can describe that succinctly, spend time to create a realistic and actionable career plan, put in the effort to gain the skills or experience you will need to achieve your long term goal, theres no limit to what you might achieve. But only you can author that and then, most importantly, action it. Good luck! // Want to progress in your career? Our career progression tips will help you get to where you want to be