PLANNING YOUR CAREER:WHAT IT ENTAILS.

It is important for every individual whether you are a student, school leaver, or an adult to plan your career. Planning a career is a continual process in order to learn and develop your skills. It helps you to think about your interests and values, explore your experiences, know how your work fits your personal life, etc. There are four steps which can help you in career planning and you can start in any step which is most relevant for you now. They are;

1. Know Yourself                                                               

Think about where you are now, where you want to be and how you're going to get there. After that, you can work on getting to know your skills, strengths, interests and values. This will help you to have a clearer idea of what you are doing and what you want to achieve. You can use this information about yourself as your personal wish list.

2. Find Out                                                                           

Find out and explore the occupations and learning areas that are of interest to you. Once you have some idea of your occupational preferences you can research the specific skills and qualifications required for those occupations. Then try to know how the skills match with the ones you find out, know your skills gap and how to find them. At the end of this step you will have a list of preferred occupations and/or learning options.

3. Make Decisions
  Compare the options you have and think about what suits you best at that point in time. Know also how your skills fit with the current labor market, weigh the advantage and disadvantage of your options and know the one that will help and that which will not. Also get to find out what you can do about it. At the end of this step you will have narrowed down your options and have more of an idea of what you need to do next to help you achieve your goals.

 

4. Take an Action

Make a plan on the steps you need to take an action. Use all you have learnt about your skills, interests and values together with the information you have gathered about the world of work to create your plan. Get to also find out how you can get help. At the end of this step, you will be able to find a plan to help you explore your options further e.g. work experience and a plan which sets out the steps to help you achieve your next learning or work goal. 

If you need more help, you can log onto www.careergong.com to know more about how to know your skills as well as its gaps. It will also help to connect you to training facilities fill your gap and also provide job opportunities for you to work with.