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    Developing and Maintaining a Career Plan

    Joyce Brocaglia
    Joyce@altaassociates.com


    So you’ve made it through the rounds of layoffs at your company and you believe things are stabilizing. You can finally relax and just do your job, right? Wrong, the only real long-term security that you’ll ever have will be achieved though your diligent efforts to develop and maintain your career plan.

    The first step in that plan is to write a career mission statement. Every large corporation has one, you should too. It should reflect the qualities, skills, and goals most important to you. The statement can be developed easily by asking yourself some key questions:

    1. What do you enjoy most at work? Really define what makes you happy and gives you a sense of accomplishment or fulfillment.
    2. What are the most important aspects of a job? For example, do you want to remain in a technical hands-on position or do you prefer managing projects and people?
    3. What do you consider your strengths to be and what have others told you your strengths are? Often our mentors and co-workers can provide insight or help us to recognize our strengths.
    4. What is the environment that you work best in? Do you thrive in small face paced, entrepreneurial companies or large corporate organizations?
    5. If you could create your perfect job description, what would it be? Think about how you would change your current role to satisfy your career desires.
    Once you’ve written your mission statement, use it as a general guide for evaluating your current job situation and in making future career path choices. If you have completed your mission statement, and determined how your current position stacks up, whether you stay or not, here are some general guidelines for taking charge of your career.

    • First make yourself known as a solutions provider to your management team. You cannot rely solely on your technical skills if you want to be considered valuable. Instead, you must become a part of the team that is sought after for high visibility projects. If you are just starting a new job, tell your boss that you want to be a member of his or her “A-team”. Try to arrange it so that the two of you sit down on a regular basis over the next few months to make sure that you’re on the right track. During that period work diligently, follow his or her suggestions and advice, and at the end of the period suggest that the process be continued informally. Ultimately this will allow your manager to recognize your accomplishments, you will have had more face time than your peers, and you’ll gain access to information that may help you build your future.

    • Second, continue to network. Just because you are satisfied with you job doesn’t mean that you should let your professional contacts get rusty. Stay involved with organizations like ISSA, stay in contact with former colleagues and professional acquaintances, and follow emerging trends in the industry. The information that you gain will help you to better understand and define your professional goals.
    It is also important to recognize when it’s time to move on. Certainly everyone should have a measure of loyalty to his or her employer, however there are times when you have to put yourself first. The following situations are tell tale signs that it is time to move on:
    • You’ve been working for the same company for a few years and your work has become redundant. I have spoken to many people who have five years of experience on their resume, but what they really have is one year of experience repeated five times. If you have hit a plateau and you no longer are learning from repetition; if the challenges of the role are few and far between, it's time to move on.
    • Politics come into play in every company. Making political alliances is a necessary step towards increasing the longevity of your career. However, even if you are politically connected, a change in senior management can still impact you. Often when new management is brought in, dramatic personnel changes follow. If you see this beginning to take happen, don’t wait until you’re tapped on the shoulder. Start looking outside for a new opportunity while working to build new relationships internally.
    • Finally, if you really want to take a proactive approach, talk to a good recruiter. Develop a relationship so that he or she understands your background, your professional goals, and the industry in which you work. A good professional recruiter is someone that you can rely on throughout your career to provide advice, insight, coaching, moral support, and help with landing the job that most closely matches your personal mission statement

     

    Joyce Brocaglia is the founder of Alta Associates, Inc., an InfoSec recruiting firm, and Jeffrey Combs is an executive recruiter with the firm.

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