Introduction
In today’s dynamic world of business and technological developments there exist vast opportunities of the careers. The Finance, Marketing, Human Resource Management, Computer and Engineering are some of the most valuable basic career opening professions of today. For any career one chooses it has certain specific tasks to perform and some prerequisites that are to be qualified before the job is offered. The requirements are either in form of Job descriptions or KSAs (Knowledge, Skills and Abilities). In order to achieve these standards one has to plan his career in such away that career development remains achievable. For any job KSAs are basically needed to measure the needed qualities of the candidate and this act as factors that are essential to identify competitively more suitable candidate for the job. Career is almost a life long activity that commences from choosing a profession and passes through growth during job, selection of alternate careers, active utilization and finally saying farewell to the job. Career planning that’s related to organization is primarily development process that includes establishing the goals and objectives for employees and formulating strategies to establish the goals and set objectives through specific means and effective evaluation. Planning career is essential for the purpose of job satisfaction in the presented work environments and to plan ones career enhancement. A lot of factors are considered while selecting a career but what ever profession is selected it must be based on held knowledge, experience, and aptitude. For this purpose a lot of studies about potential careers are required to be made to discover appropriate career. The details about careers, the out look of the careers, educational and experience needs and possible remunerations have to be found. as far personal development it is taken as
“…. life time behavioral process as well as contextual shaping of one’s career It involves creation of career pattern, decision making, and roles value and role concepts”
[1.Herr, E.L., & Cramer, S. H. (1996)]
Towards Dream Job
The dream job that I have is to be Head of Human Resource in a large organization. For this purpose I have to qualify my self well and qualify in skills and abilities that are needed for the assignment. In terms of knowledge, skills and abilities I have to qualify required courses and certifications and attain required skills of managing small medium and large industrial organizations. For this purpose I have to join an organization that enables me learn decision making and analyzing Human resource environments and provide me a chance to plan human resource plans. The five possible jobs that could lead me to my dream jobs can be:-
Assistant manager Human Resource in family organization
Deputy Manager Human Resource in a small entrepreneur.
Manager Human Resource in a large industrial organization
Senior manager HR in a large production industry
Head of Human resource in a large industrial group .
Self Career Plan in Terms of KSAs
While career planning is made to attain dream job it must be kept in mind that one should analyze self in detail and self assessment should be first step in facilitating the career planning.
Self Analysis. Self analysis shall be based on collected and known information about own self. The level of education and qualifications shall be compared for suitability of the profession being selected. Self analysis must include the held skills and abilities that are needed for the professional development. The environments where work is to be done depend upon the organizations culture that can be related to desire of such environments. Self analysis does provide the opportunities to develop and complete the deficiencies one has. The present values are also vital to be studied so that one can formulate attitudes and aptitudes towards selected profession .one must be aware of the roles and aims set for self and it should be seen if the selected profession makes is possible to attain such goals or not .the self analysis must be based on realities that exist at present and must not be over ambitioned. When self is well analyzed it becomes easier to have next step for selection of the job.
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Alternatives. In selecting career one should always explore different options where one is interested. Good decision about selection of a career depends upon career selection that’s directly proportionate to one’s traits and abilities. The jobs can be explored through media, press, internet talking with professional consultants, or by attending the related presentations. The information collected from different sources facilitates one to select appropriate occupation that’s suitable to one’s experiences and educational background. The research should also be made exploring industries, organizations where one is desirous to work and adopt it as a career. Therefore most accurate information about a profession and organization is vital in making right decision about selected job.
Identification. Once self analysis is made and alternatives have been selected now is the time when one should identify the occupations and professions that are more close to the KSAs. While identifying suitability of the professions one must correlate the same with aims and goals one has set for career development and ultimate destination in professional excellence. While such correlation is going on every identified occupation must also be well evaluated in terms of possibilities. The possibilities that offer better work environments, job security, job satisfactions, development possibilities and salary. This helps selecting alternate occupations and also assists in choosing short and long term occupations options.
Accomplishment. In last phase of the career planning a lot of activities are required to be carried out. First and foremost is analyzing what educational or skills deficiencies exist and how best these can be overcome and in what span of time. What additional education or training would be needed? Once deficiency is overcome then next will be developing a search for job. The search can be made trough advertisements or visiting the organizations web sites and look for the appropriate job banks. The accomplishment can’t be achieved unless appropriate CV is written. The resume must be well worded showing all desired information about education, skills, experiences and professional objectives. Once CV is ready it’s sent along with appropriate covering letter indicating the desire and fitness for the applied job. While CV is sent one should wait for interview call and shall prepare for job interview.
Possible Challenges and Preventive Actions Possible challenges in Career planning are mostly related to finding appropriate occupations that’s commensurate to knowledge and abilities. For this purpose best strategy is to complete all possible deficiencies well in time. The courses, certifications and training needed must be found well in advance and career be planned well ahead. It must also be kept in mind that training allows provides and enhances skills to perform the job [2, Nadler 1984].The competencies strengths and deficiencies and practical experiences are the major challenges beside others. Thus skills are needed to be well linked with held experiences. The lack of identification of competitive advantages is also felt a barrier in career planning. It is the communication skill and problem solving skills that matter a lot which has to be made strong. One has to prove its worth before selection team of the organization. The career selection also depends upon demonstrated skills in form of letter, application, CV. The major difficulty that comes across is generally writing appropriate CV.
For writing appropriate CV it should be understood that resume must be brief and related to the job applied. This must describe responsibilities and accomplishments but in brief. Any non related information must not be included in the resume. CV’s are normally not well formatted and should be well laid and free from grammatical errors. Covering letter plays very important role in creating first impression about applicant. The same must be well related to the organization, and abilities and reasons one has to accomplish the job successfully.
Interviews are also some time a challenge in career planning as interviews are the art of presenting one self before selectors as the CV presented is now being practically explored by the interviewers. One must be well prepared for interview in form of all possible questions related to job applied for. One must be nicely dressed and must look fresh and happy in mood. One must not be late for the interview and should be well in time. During the course of interview one must be confident and enthusiastic and eye contact must be maintained all the times. Replies must not be jerky or shaky and this is possible when one is attentive.
KSAs
KSAs are vital in selecting right job and are related to the job descriptions. It is basically a list of qualifications, and some personal abilities and skills that are needed for the job. The organizations measure the competencies through KSAs and select suitable candidate for the job .KSAs do identify and segregate proper candidates from non suitable applicants. The basic elements of KSAs will be:-
Knowledge. This is generally the information about the job.
Skills. These are the proficiency levels and experiences about the job .these are both verbal and written as well. the test of different nature can measure the skills
Ability. These are the performances those show the practical achievements of different given situations. The ability of planning organizing, execution and controlling are few examples of the abilities looked for.
Response to KSAs
Normally KSAs describe the requirements in terms of education and experiences and evaluation is made based on such requirements. The resume is normally needed to include all possible answers to the requirements of KSAs .the writing of responses to KSAs make the task easy. For this purpose it is very important that vacancy looked for must be well read and CV is reviewed accordingly based on related information given in KSAs. Such reviews result into writing own KSAs and are correlated to the advertised one.
Personal Development Plan
Career development is described by policy statement as follows;-
” the total constellation psychological, sociological, educational, physical economic and chance factors that combine to influence the nature of significance of work in total life span of any given individual ” [ 3 .A Policy Statement of the National Career Development Association Board of Directors]
Thus Personal Development Plan is a plan that is based on awareness about own skills, abilities, goals settings, level of desired education and furthering the need of training .the self improvement must be a continual process. One’s strengths and weaknesses are required to be included in this plan. When aim, objectives and goals are specified it becomes easy to find what all is needed to develop own self and where deficiency exists. The existing career, priorities opportunities and risks are also part of the personal development plans.
For any personal development plant same can be viewed as given
Initial Plan
Alternative plan
Particular educational and skills needed
Aims and objectives
Skills needed
Additional Educational needed for succession training
Any additional objectives and learning skills
Career SMART Objectives Career development is based on SMART objectives. These objectives must be specific, measureable, attainable, realistic and relevant as well beside timed. In case of a profession in Human Resource Management the best objectives will be as follows;-
Specific
Measureable
Attainability
Relevance
Time
Increase staff satisfaction
yep
Agreed
yep
9/2010
Reduce absentees
Yep can be seen
80 %
yep
11/2010
enhancement of staffing
yep
100 %
yep
12/2010
Performance appraisals
yep
100%
yep
1/2011
Career Paths
Career management paths are all milestones for career selection and developments. The career paths are not limited but there is a vast list of such paths. The path includes technical and non technical professions. Finance, marketing, Human resource management, engineering, audit, consultants, law, operations, IT sales, are few examples of such paths. The one who considers a specific path must consider the career management that fits for particular individual. Motivation is very important in selecting the path. When the motivation exists the analysis becomes easier. Once a path is selected it becomes clear if the same suits an individual for further development and does aptitude exists or not . A possible change of path is made easy at this level .experience is very essential in any professional development. The path to experience is related with learning and change .once experience is well managed its vital that learned knowledge is disseminated to all those who need to further their abilities and skills.
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Recommendations for Future Graduates All future graduates must learn the art of career planning and master the art of self analyzing. They must understand that human development is a continual process through which personal education, skills and abilities are changed on regular basis. The opportunities in form of training, career development plans, performance evaluation and appraisals, coaching and successive training is part of a development of an individual. The graduates must master the art of HRD as part of possible organizational development program. HRD is expansion of Human resources abilities and their growth in professional skills. It is the capacities of individuals that depend upon their access to education [4. Kelly 2001]
The fresh graduates must carefully read the vacancy announcements and must read carefully the KSAs and write response in proper form. They must include all current educations and experiences related to KSAs. When experiences are listed logically it becomes easier to judge own qualifications. They must list education and training in relation to KSAs and must include achievements. Graduates must be able to pen down their aims and objectives. The graduates must avoid using position describing works of other organizations. The exaggeration becomes difficult to be justified neither too humbleness assists in any form. One should be straight and simple.
Conclusion
Career development may it be personal or organizational helps learning new skills and enhances the performance of individuals. Career planning help plan future possibilities of the development and rising in selected careers. Opportunities are identified, enhances awareness of the benefits of development as a result of career planning. Better strategies can be formulated that assist attain desirable motivation amongst individuals and employees as a whole. Career planning must be based on proper analysis better planning, perfect execution and effective evaluation. The plan must include such objectives that are specific, measureable, relevant, attainable and timed based. Once the career planning is logically developed the set goals and objectives are easily attained in a specified period of time
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