A major key of career development is having a career development plan. The University of Connecticut’s Center for Career Development has provided a 3-step guide for crafting your career development plan. UConn identifies the three steps as exploring, preparing, and implementing.
- Exploring
It all begins with exploring your values, interests, skills, and how they tie together. Engaging in tasks related to your interests and skills will gradually improve them—the first step of career development.
- Preparing
Although honing your skills is a form of preparation, there are others to consider. Those honed skills can now be used to gain experience in your field. With some experience under your belt, you’ll be able to build viable connections with talented individuals that share your values and visions.
- Implementing
Now is when you apply the things you’ve consolidated—skills, experience, connections—and act on them. Think of “exploring” and “preparing” as your high school-self deciding who you are, what you’re good at, and what you want to be, and “implementing” as your successful leap to college and a degree. Use all of your resources to their full capacity.
Career development is a process; use these three steps as stepping stones towards an exceptional career development plan.
