Long Term Career Planning

Situation: You are in the early stages of your career (you graduated from college 10 or less years ago). You like your job and the industry but would like to advance your career. You are unsure of how to get promoted or get a better job in the industry.

Begin creating a long term plan for yourself. Within your industry, what are your long term goals? What would you like to achieve over the next 5, 10 or 15 years?

Research your field and look at job descriptions of senior level positions as well as the bio’s of successful executives. Speak to respected colleagues. What information are you finding? What is listed in those senior level job descriptions that you do not yet have? What clues can you garner from executive bios? Did they stay at one company for 20+ years or did they leverage their experience and move to other companies as opportunities presented themselves? What are potential pratfalls you can learn to avoid?

Perhaps:

There is a master’s degree you can complete in the evenings and on weekends that will help your advancement?
Specialized computer and/or language skills you can gain?
Requesting and taking on additional responsibilities in another area of the business at work?
Publishing scholarly articles in your industry’s trade publication’s and journals?
You can organize and attend more industry networking events to up your profile in the industry?
You can volunteer in your free time and gain additional relevant skills you can leverage at a later date?

Knowledge is power. Do the research now to map your road to success.