We live in a competitive job market, and having a clear and well-defined competency and career development plan can be the key to achieving our professional goals faster. A competency and career development plan is a tool that can help identify strengths and weaknesses, set career goals, and create a roadmap for achieving those goals.
During the pandemic, 49% of employees reported in research that their career development, mentoring, and training became lacking. And that’s because most employees wait for their managers to initiate development conversations and planning, instead of taking control over their careers.
In this blog post, we will describe the benefits you can achieve by taking control of your career and creating your own growth plan, as well as give you a step-by-step process to creating one, some use-case examples, and some videos showing you how to discuss them at work. We will also talk about our global leadership growth blueprint, a career and development plan template or blueprint, which you can use to help you map growth opportunities, development objectives, and a solid action plan to achieve your primary career goal.
What Is A Competency And Career Development Plan?
A competency and career development plan is a tool that helps individuals identify their career goals, assess their skills and competencies, and develop a plan to acquire the skills and experiences they need to achieve those goals successfully. The plan typically includes a review of the individual’s current skills and competencies, identification of skills and competencies needed for career advancement, and the creation of an action plan to acquire those skills and competencies.
The plan may also include the identification of very specific career goals, the creation of a timeline for achieving each specific goal, and the development of a plan for networking and building relationships and trust with colleagues and industry professionals. A competency and career development plan can be used by individuals at any stage of their career, from entry-level to executive-level positions. Actually, once elaborated, it can be used as a guide to making career decisions throughout the career, so long as it is often updated and reviewed.
Benefits Of A Competency And Career Development Plan
There are many benefits to having a professional development plan for your career and competencies, including:
1. Increased Self-Awareness: By assessing your skills and competencies, you can gain a better understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. This can help you identify areas where you need to improve, as well as areas where you excel and leverage.
2. Clarity of Goals: A career development plan helps you identify your career goals and create a plan for achieving those goals. This can help you stay focused and motivated, as you work towards achieving your long-term goals of career objectives.
3. Clear Career Path: A Career Path is made of small mini-goals or “stepping stones” to your main career goal. They are the future roles you will pursue and use as stepping stones to your career goal. A career growth and development plan helps you gain clarity to identify all of these stepping stones and your long-term career goals, while defining specific steps you need to take for each of your mini-goals. This can give you a clear sense of direction and purpose in your career, and help you stay focused and motivated. It will also help you prevent career mistakes that keep you side-tracked from your main goals.
4. Personalized Development: By identifying your specific goals and skill gaps, you can create a development plan that is tailored to your needs and preferences. This can help you grow and develop faster, and achieve your goals more efficiently.
5. Increased Confidence: As you achieve your development goals, i.e. “stepping stones,” you will gain confidence in your abilities and become more self-assured in your career. This can help you take on new challenges and opportunities, and achieve even greater success.
6. Competitive Edge: In today’s job market, having a career growth and development plan can give you a competitive advantage over other candidates. Employers want to hire people who are invested in their own growth and development, and who have a clear vision for their career path.
7. Improved Job Performance: By identifying areas where you need to improve and developing a plan for acquiring the skills and experience you need, you can improve your job performance and become a more valuable asset to your employer. It also opens doors for new career options and opportunities.
8. Increased Job Satisfaction: A career development plan can help you identify career goals that align with your interests, passions, and values. By pursuing a career that is aligned with your interests, passions, and core-values, you can increase your job satisfaction and overall happiness.
Examples Of Competency & Career Development Plan Use Cases
Having a plan also helps you on numerous occasions. Some examples of how having a Competency and Career Development Plan can come in handy are:
✅ When you talk to your boss about your career goals. You’ll sound more assertive and goal-oriented. You can be well prepared to ask them about training you need, experiences you want to develop, and even connections within the company to help you grow.
✅ During performance reviews, based on your performance, you ask for specific training or experience opportunities already in your growth pipeline. You can also highlight that certain problems or issues you had during the year arose because of the lack of a specific experience or skill. Sometimes, a failure in a project or a performance considered subpar is not the employee’s fault alone. This type of plan helps back development needs so that you can share responsibility with your leader for development.
✅ When you are confronted with a new job opportunity and need to make a decision whether or not to take it. By having a clear and written plan, you’ll already know if that opportunity is aligned with your chosen career path, and if that opportunity will lead you toward your career goal or not. You’ll also be clearer about how it is aligned with your values and aspirations. Making decisions will become much faster and easier.
✅ When actively pursuing a new job position, title, or company. You’ll know exactly what to seek in terms of job titles, experience types, company’s evolution stage, and learning opportunities.
How To Write A Professional Competency And Career Development Plan In 7 Steps:
Creating a competency and career development plan requires a systematic approach. Here are some steps to help you create your own competency and career development plan:
STEP 1: Identify your career goals: Start by identifying your short-term and long-term career goals. Consider what you want to achieve in the next few months or years, and what you hope to achieve in the long run. We suggest goals for 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, and a final career goal before retirement.
STEP 2: Assess your current skills and competencies: Conduct a self-assessment to identify your strengths and weaknesses. Ask your colleagues, managers, and mentors for feedback and suggestions. This self-assessment is not a personality or attitudinal assessment, like The Meyers Brigg or The Energy Leadership Index™ Assessment, for example. It must be a skill gap assessment, like the one we provide in our Blueprint. You need to quickly learn what your gaps are to close them.
STEP 3: Identify the skills and competencies you need to achieve your goals: In the previous step, you identified skill gaps. Now you’ll consider which skills and competencies you need to develop first to achieve your career goals faster. This could include technical skills, such as knowledge of specific software, programming languages, or technical concepts, as well as soft skills, such as leadership, communication, critical thinking, decision-making, and problem-solving skills.
STEP 4: Create a plan for acquiring the necessary skills and competencies: Identify the resources you need to develop the skills and competencies you need. This could include training programs, courses, workshops, books, executive coaching, special projects and experiences, and networking opportunities.
STEP 5: Set a timeline and milestones: Set a timeline for achieving your career goals and identify milestones along the way. Milestones are like development check-in points, when you stop, reflect, and evaluate your progress. This will help you stay on your career track and ensure that you are making progress toward your goals.
STEP 6: Track Your Progress: Regularly track your progress and make adjustments to your plan as necessary. Celebrate your successes and learn from your challenges. We usually recommend including tollgate events for tracking. I personally use one hour at every year’s ThanksGiving to thank for everything I learned that year and reflect on and record what’s on track and what needs revitalized focus in my career.
STEP 7: Regularly review and update your career plan: Review your competency and career development plan regularly to ensure that you are making progress towards your personal goals. Update your plan as needed to reflect changes in your career goals or to adjust your strategy based on your progress or emerging roadblocks.
Remember, your competency and career development plan is a personal tool to help you achieve your dream career goals. It should be customized to your individual needs and reflect your unique strengths and weaknesses.
Tools And Templates To Help You Create Your Competence & Career Development Plan
Coaching Expatriates® has developed a state-of-the-art Competence and Career Development Plan called The Growth Blueprint Program. This is a program designed specifically for global executives like you who are looking to accelerate their personal and professional growth in a global and competitive environment. Our program is based on the latest research in personal development and is designed to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, set ambitious goals, and develop the skills you need to achieve them, according to The Global Leadership Pillars™ framework.
You can get the blueprint in 2 versions: a stand-alone workbook option and a full program option, which includes the workbook, online classes to help you fill out the workbook, and examples to assist you in getting started with customizing your own workbook and plan.
The full program comprises 6 modules with video classes that will work on filling the workbook alongside you to improve your experience in creating your plan and going through this process. We always recommend the complete program to facilitate and expedite the process of creating something that is complex and can be overwhelming.
What Does Coaching Expatriates® Growth Blueprint Full Program Cover?
Career Development Planning is something extremely important for anyone who is ambitious and wants to achieve success in the corporate world, especially the global corporate environment. Most people focus on short-term goals or SMART goals when putting together their plans, though.
A good plan, however, requires not only realistic goals for your current role and the next action steps. It needs a robust career development plan template that will work on multiple aspects of your career path to achieve your goal career.
Our growth and career development program — this blueprint — focuses on key development activities:
- The Global Leadership Growth Blueprint program has a digital Workbook with more than 150 pages with step-by-step exercises that will help you map, organize, define, prioritize, and plan all the skills & experiences that you need to succeed in your global career. This means mapping career opportunities and respective skills required to be successful when taking these opportunities.
- The full program has a set of online classes that will guide you in the use of this printable workbook. This companion online program makes things more structured and enjoyable, so that you can fully understand how to make the most out of your program. It has examples of how to fill out the workbook, so that you can have some references and ideas on how to complete the workbook, using your own circumstances.
- This program is focused on The Global Leadership Pillars™ skills but does not cover global leadership concepts.This means it helps you create individual developmental activities for your growth, but it’s not actually teaching you the Leadership skills. It is assuming that you are either part of our leadership development program called The Global Leadership Pillars™ Program, where we teach comprehensive global leadership skills, or that you are mastering these concepts in another leadership program or training.
- It’s perfect to help you map your career’s next steps and all your career ladder or path, all the way through your career goal! So it’s a great option for those looking for a career management system. You can use your blueprint, once finished, to guide you in making decisions regarding all of your career commitments, like experiences, training, and people to meet throughout your career!
This Growth Blueprint Program is a corporate professional development plan template in the form of a workbook, which will help you achieve your goals faster than you ever thought possible. So why wait? Visit The Growth Blueprint Program’s page to learn more about how it can help you achieve your full potential.
How Growing Leaders Discuss Competence & Career Development With Their Boss?
According to research, 52% of the workforce is not exactly very happy with their work, and 76% of them would enjoy new opportunities for career growth. If you are one of them, you’ll want to know how to discuss this with your manager in an effective way. We created this very special video to share with you 6 easy steps to discuss growth & career development with your boss:
How Do Global Executives Discuss Competence & Career Development With Their Employees?
94% of employees in one study reported that they would stay longer with the company, provided they had career discussions and opportunities with their managers. So, of course, we also created a special video geared towards managers who want to use the 6-Steps Process to discuss growth & career development with their employees and reduce turnover rates:
Final Remarks
In conclusion, a competency and career development plan is an essential tool for achieving your professional goals. You should regularly review and update your plan to ensure that you are making progress toward your career development goals. Utilizing tools and templates such as The Growth Blueprint Program can be a great way to make sure you create a top-notch career plan and stay on track with it. It can be used with or without the association of work with a career coach. If not using a career coach, though, we strongly recommend that you purchase the full program that contains the online classes, to make your career planning experience more precise and robust.
If you are looking for a leadership development partner and consultant to help create, fine-tune or customize your Competency & Career Development Plan, you can hire me as your executive and development coach. Have a Free Strategy Call with me. We will go over your needs, and devise together how to best create the plan that suits your career goals.
If you are interested in developing specific global leadership skills, personally or team-wise, check out our online Global Executive Leadership Program. We go over all The Global Leadership Pillars™ during 9 online modules, specially meant for global leadership development. It’s a unique leadership training methodology that will change the way you think, relate, and strategize as a global leader to help you make impactful business decisions.
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