Strategic Career Planning: An Introduction
“What should I do with my life?!” This is a question all of us have probably wrestled with before.
In fact, one of the most common reasons that clients reach out to me for career coaching is to talk about how to plan their career, especially if they are university students or new graduates. Many of us felt lost, overwhelmed, or even a crushing sense of bewilderment when we are confronted with the reality of having to think about our career path.
In this article, I will present four ways to think about your career journey. Regardless of whether you are fresh out of school or have been working for decades, it is never too late to be strategic in planning your professional trajectory.
It is common knowledge that most of us will have multiple careers in our lifetime, whether by choice or by necessity. Many people even have multiple careers at the same time, with the rise in side-hustles and portfolio careers. If we are expected to navigate several career transitions in our lifetime, then we need to be strategic about how we plan for those changes.
Here are four paths to consider as you plan out your career journey.
The Topics Path
This is often what most people think of when they hear “career planning”. Most of us go to a training institution and pick a topic, major, or trade to specialize in.
In fact, universities and colleges are designed this way because, in the past, many people chose one area to become an expert in and then work in a job directly related to that area for their whole professional careers. Although this is not likely no longer the reality for most of us, this is still the way we are trained.
Nevertheless, it is still important to be intentional about the topic that you choose when you are considering some form of continuing education, so think about the types of issues that will always be in demand. Here are three examples of topics:
Health and Well-being: Unfortunately, humans will always continue to get sick, die, and age, but this also means there is a higher likelihood that there will always be meaningful work in this area.
Safety and Security: It is another unfortunate reality that our world will continue to be a place where people worry about their safety and security, whether that is related to public safety, climate disasters, terrorism, or war. In crisis there is always opportunity, and work to be done.
Money and Economy: This is another essential aspect of our society and although the way we exchange goods and services may change as technology advances, there will always be a demand for processing those exchanges.
The Skills Path
As the job market becomes less predictable, more people are thinking about “transferable skills” and “up-skilling” to reflect the changing demands as new types of jobs emerge. This is a very versatile way to plan your career, as you can seek out many different ways to acquire skills, some of which do not require formalized education.
Here are some examples of skills that you can consider building, with ideas for how to gain these skillsets:
Relationship building: Many client-facing jobs require an exceptional ability to build, maintain, and nourish relationships with different types of people. We can build these skills through practicing effective, empathetic communication in our friendships and close relationships; learning new skills in therapy or with a counsellor; or listening to podcasts and reading books that deepen our relationship to ourselves and others.
Project management: Although there are many formal training programs to gain skills in project management, most parents and/or caregivers are learning how to manage the multiple “projects” in their lives every day as they juggle childcare, elder care, pet care, and (hopefully!) self-care. We can practice project management by effectively and efficiently managing the responsibilities in our lives.
Creativity: While AI can do a lot of amazing things, humans have an innate capacity to be creative and think way outside of the box that AI cannot currently compete with. Creativity can be fostered through pursuits in music, art, sports, and spiritual & cultural practices that can positively influence our careers in unexpected, but beautiful, ways.
The Positions Path
Do you like putting out fires?
That might be a strange question to ask, but it is a good one to reflect on because if you choose to become a leader, putting out metaphorical fires is likely going to be a big part of your job.
The third path is to consider whether you want to aspire for leadership and/or management positions, or if you prefer to be in a contributor position. The skillsets and day-to-day realities of these positions are quite different.
When people hear “leadership”, they often imagine a type of job that is quite different than what it actually entails. It is worthwhile to reflect on why you want to join the executive ranks and really think about whether or not that would align with your goals in life. Many people who end up in management also realize, after some time, that they miss being a contributor because they are not actually doing the kind of work that brings them joy and meaning.
Here is an example to illustrate my point:
Imagine you are a researcher and you love researching the organisms that live in the intertidal zone (a fancy academic term for beaches!). You went to university and studied for years to get a PhD in this area. Your training brought you to amazing places around the world where you got to collect samples from intertidal zones and then spend hours alone in the lab looking at these astonishing lifeforms under the microscope.
Fast forward twenty years and you somehow found yourself in an high-up, administrative position in the university. Your days now consist of frantic emails from staff and faculty asking you to put out fires; long, dry executive meetings where you have to navigate internal politics; and fundraising dinners and schmoozing with rich donors to beg for money for more lab space.
You have not gone out to the field to collect specimens from your beloved intertidal zones for years.
All this to say, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with aspiring for a leadership position, but just be thoughtful about what you might give up by no longer being a contributor, and spend some time learning about what a leadership role actually entails to make the right decision for you.
The Interests Path
The three paths above are all quite structured and logical. This last path is the wildcard!
You can also loosely structure your career to be open to opportunities as they arise or let your curiosity lead you to unexpected places. This path is way more fun (in my opinion!) but you have to be comfortable with the inherent uncertainty.
I also want to acknowledge that there is some level of privilege required to be able to take such an unstructured career path. Many of us do not have the luxury of choosing jobs based on our interests and curiosities because we don’t have as big (or any) safety net to catch us if things don’t pan out.
However, if you are comfortable with risk and have the support and means to do so, this path can also reap the highest rewards, as the horizon is beyond what you can currently imagine.
If this path resonates with you, here are some strategies to consider:
Build your community: This goes beyond merely “networking” but rather, expand your community to make it as diverse as possible in every way. This will expand the number and types of opportunities you encounter and also expand your professional horizons.
Stay current: Read voraciously, watch TEDTalks, listen to podcasts, do whatever you have to do to stay up-to-date with the issues that interest you so that you can spot the trends before other people do.
Learn to ask: Learn to be bold and advocate for what you want, because as the saying goes, “the worst thing that can happen is they say no” :)
These four paths are not mutually exclusive; you can certainly mix and match to form your own unique itinerary!
Bon voyage and wishing you safe travels on your career adventure.
