Progressing professionally has its challenges, but with planning, you can make the most of your time and achieve your goals sooner.
Career Development Practice Lead
Career Development Practice Lead, Kelly Keers shares her advice on creating the perfect career plan for you. With more than a decade of experience in global career development at Oracle and many more in learning, development, and consultancy outside the organization—it’s safe to say she knows a few things about career planning!
Kelly believes that “career development is for everyone regardless of where they are in their career. It is a lifelong journey.” Now, she brings her extensive knowledge to bear with a strategy that anyone can apply to build a career planning blueprint.
Step one: Self-reflection
Thinking about yourself and what you can bring to a new role is a big part of the preparation stage. You’ll need to step back and review your career so far for clues on your next steps. This may sound daunting, but Kelly has broken the self-reflection phase into three parts to make it easier.
Identify your strengths and weaknesses
“Identify the skills and strengths in which you excel, as well as the skills you love to use. Roles including those skills will be a better fit and more satisfying.”
Assess your passions and interests
“Explore your passions and interests to find clues about work that would be a good fit. Interests that don’t seem related to work can have elements that apply to your work life. List some of your top passions and interests in life and work. Think about items that involve you doing, creating, or learning something.”
Explore different career paths
“Consider different paths, such as growing in your current role, working toward a promotion, moving to another team, becoming a people manager, or realigning and taking a step back.”
Step two: Ask the right questions
A successful career plan should start with asking the right questions. Kelly believes that to make the best use of your time, you should start by thinking about where you are professionally and taking stock of how much you can give to the process. Answering just four questions frankly can create a quick sketch of what’s possible before approaching your career plan.
Start by grabbing a pen or keyboard and asking:
- Where am I in my career today?
- How much change am I looking for at this point in my life?
- How committed am I to engaging in this process?
- Who can support me in this journey and help me clarify my career aspirations (peers, managers, coach, mentor, family, friends)?
With these answers, you’ll be able to tailor a plan that meets your needs while leveraging what’s unique about you.
Step three: Make a plan
Planning is a vital part of succeeding at any career stage. While each person’s career plan will look different, all effective plans share six things:
- Write a career statement: Outline your career and experience while highlighting your skills, values, interests, and desired direction. This can also double as a resume introduction.
- Focus your efforts: Identify the core actions you need to take to reach the next step and set aside the time to achieve them.
- Create up to four development goals: Setting tangible targets with deadlines from six to 12 months will shape your progress and ensure you make the most of your time.
- Build skills and knowledge: Identify the skill requirements of your desired role, consider the gaps in your abilities, and how you can fill them.
- Share your goals with your network for feedback and insights: Tap into other perspectives and invite constructive criticism to make your plan more resilient.
- Continue to update your plan: Stay aware of changing circumstances in your personal and professional life, and the job market to make sure your career plan stays workable.
Kelly is keen to stress point six and reminds candidates that “exploring new opportunities is an iterative process. You may need to reassess your plan and readiness regularly as your skills, interests, and businesses evolve.” Staying motivated in the face of change can make all the difference between a workable career plan and one which becomes less useful over time.
Following these steps will leave you with a strong sense of career direction and equip you with plenty of action points to follow to reach your goals.
Career growth at Oracle
It’s always useful to be equipped to direct your own career, but it’s especially helpful when your employer backs you in your aspirations.
Director of Internal Talent Advisory
Oracle is committed to helping you manage your career, whether that is to expand in your current role or grow into a new role. We encourage self-directed learning and development that empowers our people to explore new challenges internally, as well as prioritize internal candidates through our Advantage YOU internal mobility program.
Kelly points to “a variety of career development and internal mobility guidance and support resources including mentoring and job readiness assessments tools” as integral to this. All of which are available to everyone at Oracle.
Internal opportunities
“Oracle’s internal first culture is a key differentiator,” adds Lorri Brady, Director of Internal Talent Advisory. “Advantage YOU provides guidance and resources on how to explore jobs and gain insight and visibility to available opportunities to help you manage and grow your career at Oracle.”
“Internal career advisors provide guidance on job skillsets and qualifications, job families and levels, and the internal application process. Advantage YOU also helps managers understand the importance and value of considering internal applicants first.”
This 360-degree approach to personal and professional development puts Oracle ahead for long-term career success. It means that more people decide to say and grow with us for longer. It also leads to happy returnees bringing their new skills back to the company to continue their journeys.
Are you considering a new career direction? Oracle offers excellent career development opportunities to all its people at all levels. Explore our open roles and help create the future with us today.