How to Build a Career Map that Works for You

Quick question. Would you just wake up one fine morning and decide you want to go for a road trip without planning your route? For a successful outcome, everything in life needs proper planning. And so does your career.

No matter the level you’re in your line of work, you need to know your objectives and outline how you’re going to achieve them.

If you fail to have a clear plan, your professional life may lack real direction, and you’ll just be reacting to events at your workplace rather than proactively creating opportunities. Luckily, there’s a way out of this: building your career map.

Do you feel like you’re stuck in a rut? Here are tried and tested tips that can help you build a career map that works for you.

What’s a Career Map?

A career map is a written strategy showing your current state in your career, where you eventually want to be, and the steps you can take to reach that objective.

How Can You Create A Career Map?

This process is often challenging, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Let’s get you started with the following steps.

1. Know Your Destination

You can’t start mapping your path if you don’t know where you want to go. So, as a first step in building your map, create a detailed vision statement of things you’d like to achieve at various points in the future.

Neither your boss nor your mentor is responsible for your career. It’s you who should take full responsibility! Before you start chasing that dream job, first articulate the meaning of success to you, including your personal life.

Remember, it’s only after you’ve crafted a clear vision of what you want to be in the coming years that you can tangibly build a map to get there.

If you’re making a professional change, think of why you want to switch careers before taking that first step. Ask yourself, are you building towards something, or you want to escape from something.

If it’s the former, you’re good to go. But if it’s the latter, the changes you seek may not be beneficial to your career.

2. Spend as Much Time on Yourself as Working on Your Job

You can quickly get cynical on the job. You can feel discouraged or stuck when disappointments happen. But deciding to work on yourself and improve your skills can make you feel motivated, even when things aren’t going your way.

Personal improvement plays an instrumental role in building a career map. That means setting daily goals, reading books that inspire you, and becoming more conscious of the things you do in your free time.

It’s vital to understand where you’re before deciding how you’ll reach where you want to be. Conduct an assessment of both your soft and hard skills. Which aspects of your work excite you the most?

Be honest about your shortcoming and strengths. Besides helping you crystallize your long-term goal, this self-review can give you insights into moves you’ll need to make to achieve it.

Keep in mind that working on yourself doesn’t necessarily mean tackling all your weaknesses in your workplace. As you start mapping your course, it’s wise to focus on your strengths and make yourself better at those specific skills.

3. Don’t Focus Too Far Down Your Career

It would help if you didn’t focus too far down your career. Suppose you want a managerial post. Then you’ll have to find ways to build your experience and prepare yourself for the task gradually. And if you’re going to take a different route, you’ll have to start taking classes to build your skills.

Don’t look far ahead to what might seem like an unattainable end. Instead, set short-term goals for your projects. Look at that next step towards achieving your goal and focus on it, don’t focus on the next four to five steps down the road.

4. Remember, You Can’t Do It Alone!

Admittedly, the crucial role of building contacts with individuals who want to see you succeed can’t be underestimated. Creating your career map isn’t all about maximizing your most vital skills. You also need to identify those who can help you get ahead.

You can’t just chart your path by yourself. Do you have mentors you can reach out to for advice? Who’s living the kind of life you’d want to live?

These are the people you need to know and build relationships with. They can assist you in making the work of mapping your career become less of a difficult test. That’s why you need to figure them earlier before you embark on your journey towards the job of your dreams.

5. Take Actionable Steps Daily

Yearning to make your dreams a reality? Start by taking actionable steps today. Set aside at least half an hour to list down the skills you’d want to develop and the projects you’d like to work on. Most importantly, think of actionable moves you can make to start achieving those goals.

Is there a potential mentor you can approach or a book you can read? Each step will bring you closer to your dreams.

6. Be Open to Changing Your Path

It’s not always going to be a walkover. You might have to make a few adjustments along the way or change your destination completely. Either way, you need to prepare yourself to adapt to any detours you may hit along the way.

Remember that planning out your career map won’t automatically take you to your dream job. Over time, your opinion about that job might change. That’s why you need to be adaptable, flexible, and open to learning new skills.

Most people don’t want to make a career choice because they’re frightened of getting it wrong.  The good news is, you can make changes. So, don’t be paralyzed!

Go ahead and make that decision, learn from it, and then make better choices from that point forward. And even if you make a mistake, it’s never too late to learn from the experience and adjust accordingly.

Press On!

Any goal worth chasing likely includes bumps along the way. But don’t allow them to diminish your determination. If you run into a roadblock, don’t yield, regroup and move on.

Besides planning, career progress requires both drive and discipline. So, learn from your setbacks, then forge ahead.

Hiring Companies

Are you looking for ways to attract and retain tech talent? A great way to do this is by building career maps for each employee. Planning out and communicating growth plans, building career ladders and providing a visual career road map that routes how each employee can develop new skills, gain new experiences, and even provide specific certifications and/or accreditations are very effective methods for enhancing job satisfaciton, improves engagement, promotes retention, and coud increase productivity.

Career Map Template & Examples

Struggling on where and how to build your career map? Checkout the following template to ease the process. The following career map template will get you started on creating an effective career map:

[Starting job title: Your first section outlines all the details surrounding the starting point. Include a full job description.]

[Bullet point defining further requirements]

[Bullet point defining personality profile details]

[A heading introducing goals. Ensure your goals are both relevant and achievable. Consider the S.M.A.R.T system when determining objectives as it creates more effective goals. Goals between career stages often include years of work experience, the number of positive work reviews, specific achievements or rewards earned or other related feats. Include as many as needed for the specific role.]

[Goal 1]

[Goal 2]

[Goal 3]

[Ending job title: This final section outlines all the details surrounding the ending point. Treat it similarly to the starting point and include a job description and a personality profile.]

In Closing

You wouldn’t take a road trip without knowing where you were travelling to, right? Mapping out your career path is like using Google Maps for a trip. Google Maps tells you where you need to go in order to reach your final destination. It’s important to remain flexible as career paths change. Be flexible with your career map and great things are sure to come your way.

About nexus IT group

nexus IT group is a specialized tech recruitment agency who recruits top IT talent across the US.  If you have an immediate IT opening, or are a job seeker looking to advance your IT career, you’ve come to the right IT staffing firm, contact nexus IT group. We have access to highly skilled, top talent most can’t easily get in front of, so let our recruiting team show you why so many firms trust and love our IT staffing agency.

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