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What is a career development plan? A career development plan is a list of the long-term goals and short-term goals of an individual or employees. It is often about an employees planned sequence job experiences, current and future job, educational attainment and other achievements, which are used by employers analyze each employee and help them make improvements.

Employers must recommend a career development plan to all their employees even if they are optional. This is so that all of their goals could be aligned and so that they can have realistic career goals and expectations. In case you need help with developing a career plan, then you may use the career development plan samples and templates that we have included in this article.

Career Development Plan Template

Simple Career Development Plan Template

My Career Development Plan Template

Personal and Career Development Plan Sample Template

Professional Career Development Plan

Printable Career Development Plan

5 Minute Career Action Plan Sample

What Is a Career Development Plan Templates?

Career development plan templates are ready-made templates intended for making career development plans easier and more convenient. The template includes all of the details that make up a complete and reliable career development plan. Some of the information included are short-term and long-term career goals or objectives, summary statement, educational background, training and seminars attended, job assignments or job experiences and development activities.

Career development plans templates are also useful and they are used for the following reasons.

• It is used to have a career development plan document ready whenever it is needed or required.
• The availability of the template eliminates the need to create a new development plan from scratch every time it is needed.
• Career development plan templates are used to save time and resources.
• Templates are used so that the desired formatting and uniform formatting can be followed.
• Career development plan templates can also be used as a reference or as a guide when creating your own customized template based on your preference.

Have you been using a career development plan template before? If so, what other uses of the template do you know of? If you would also like to get access to other related articles, then you can check them out on our website. The titles you may find useful are Employee Development Plan Examples, Sample Marketing Plan Template, and Professional Development Plan Samples.

Why Is a Career Development Plan Important?

The purpose of a career development plan is so that employers can help their employees grow and achieve their goals. This in turn increases the likelihood of retaining employees because they know that their managers and supervisors will assist them to move up t the next job level, instead of leaving the company to pursue their goals somewhere else. There are a number of reasons why a career development plan is important and we have made a list of them below.

• A career development plan will help you move out of the stagnant working style, working condition and working position that you are in. Nowadays, tenure is no longer the basis for getting promoted or moving up a rank in a company or organization. It is more on how you see yourself in the company and what you plan to do to get to where you want. With a career development plan, you will have clear view and direction of where you want to be.
• A career development plan will help you realize your strengths and take responsibility for your weaknesses. You won’t be a newbie forever and you can’t not know anything for long. Planning for the direction where you want your career to go motivates you to work harder to turn your weaknesses into strengths and your strengths into opportunities. By identifying both your strengths and weaknesses you can create an action plan on how to improve them or make them better.
• A career development plan helps in defining what your future career will be. Working without a defined career path is a job that you would not want to pursue. If you pan your career carefully, you will know exactly what you want to do. This gives you the feeling of satisfaction for the job or career that you chose and currently have. In return, you will continue to be motivated and hyper toward your career goals.
• A career development plan will help you establish a timeline for your career goals and objectives. With this you can determine the order of the actions you will be taking and come up with an organized and realistic plan that you can rely on.
• A career development man will boost your confidence, which will enable you to succeed. Having a plan ready to achieve your goals will make you confident in moving forward to success.

If you haven’t made a career development plan for yourself, then it’s high time to start one now. You will be amazed at how helpful it is to you and to your dream career. Other articles related to career development plans and plans in general are available on our website. To name a few are Business Development Plan Templates, Sample Financial Business Plan Templates, and HR Operational Plan Samples & Templates.

What Are the Steps in Career Planning?

Planning for your career and what you want to be or where you want to be in the future is an important step that every individual should take. A lot of successful people are successful not just because they are hardworking, but because they had planned for their careers. Here are steps that you can take to plan for your career.

Reflection and Self-Evaluation

Before you actually start planning about your career, you first need to know yourself. Knowing yourself includes gathering related information that will assist you in making the necessary decisions about a career.

Exploration

After learning or knowing abut yourself, what you would want to do next is to explore about the many possibilities and options that are open to you. You can do this by doing a research on the careers you want and other careers you may be possibly interested in. This is also where you asses start assessing your skills, interests, strengths, weakness, work-life needs, and values, and then match them with the options you have available.

Goal Setting and Decision-Making

By this time you should be able to visualize a plan. You should be able to set your career goals after making a self-assessment and exploring the opportunities available to you. Your career goals is all up to you, and you can’t have anyone dictate you on what you want, but you can listen to advice given to you about it. Still, the decision is yours to make. Perhaps, that is the hardest part of it all.

Acquiring Experience

It may take some time for you to get or accomplish your career goals after you have made a plan for it and that is perfectly fine as long as you are still within your realistic timeline. To achieve your goals and realize your career plan, you will need to work for it by gaining the necessary and related experiences, skills, knowledge and abilities.

Implementation

Surely, you will learn a lot about different things as you gain experience. In this step you will be implementing your plan by using or applying what you have learned along the way. Also,you will need to continue to evaluate yourself to see if you are taking the direction or career path that you have planned on taking.

You need ti be serious about planning for your career as it will help decide who and what you are going to be in the future. It is always a hood thing to plan ahead of time before its is actually too late. Human as we are, we actually don’t get younger by the day so might as well prepare for what is to come. To find out more about planning, you may check out related articles we offer on our website. Some examples you may find useful are Business Plan Templates, Company Plan Samples & Templates, and Sales Plan Templates.

Sample Career Development Plan

Individual Career Development Plan

Personal Career Development Planning Template

Moving On Career Development Plan

Individual Academic Career Development Plan

What Are the Four Career Stages?

The four career stages are establishment, advancement, maintenance and withdrawal. Let us take a closer look at each of these career stages below.

Establishment

The very first stage of in career development is the establishment stage. As its name implies, it is when you start working in the career you planned and you want yourself to be in. This is the stage where individuals learn about the jobs, the basic elements needed to be able to function properly and where they belong in the organization. People who change careers often start over from the establishment stage regardless of how long they have been working and regardless of how far they have gone through the career stages.

Advancement

After being able to establish yourself in the career you have chosen, the next step would be the advancement. This is where an individual starts to harvest the fruits of their labor. From a regular employee they get promoted or move up to a higher position. This is the stage where individuals gain success.

Maintenance

The maintenance stage is when an individual can decide to move further up or stay with how things are in their career. Their actions are take  seriously here as they are no longer new comers to the company or new to the position they have currently. They can also teach or train new employees on how things are in the company.

Withdrawal

This is the stage where the career development declines and the individual has to withdraw from their job or get a retirement. Leaving or withdrawing form the company that is doing well before you are about to leave is believed to be a very difficult part of this stage.

What stage are you in your career? Knowing what stage you are in will be to your advantage as you can create a career development plan with a realistic timeline and be able to do them according to your own pace.

We hope that you are able to learn from this article. You may also check out articles, like Strategic Plan Samples & Templates, Emergency Action Plan Samples, and Sample Marketing Action Plans. We also have tons of samples and templates that you may download for free. Feel free to check them out.