Individual Career Development Plan

The purpose of this assignment is for you to apply some of the information on training and development and career development to your own career. A secondary purpose is to provide structure for you to consider and plan (or review your plan) for your career.

In a 1200-1500 word paper, prepare your own five-year career development plan. Incorporate the following elements:

• Identify your goals and objectives. How will you measure your objectives? How will your plan affect your work/life balance? What trends in the workplace, economy, and marketplace do you need to be aware of that could influence your plan?
• Examine the critical skills and competencies required to achieve success. What transferable skills do you have and how can these skills be leveraged if you decide to take a different career or life path? How can your professional experience help you plan for the next 5 years of your career?
• What career-related training, formal education, and/or certifications do you need to help meet your career goals? Would it be helpful to join and participate in a professional association? Would it be useful to you to have a mentor?
• List job satisfaction attributes. What specific work environment attributes would provide satisfaction?
• While not a research paper, your paper should include at least three academic references. As always, ideas and information that are not your own must be cited in the body of the paper.

The career plan is a look at your future, and not as much as on your past or your present.  It should be written in 1st person and have a minimum of 3 references along with correct APA citations throughout the paper.  APA requires a cover page, running head, page number, citations, reference page, headings, etc. Please submit your individual career plan here.  Note that all papers in this course should use APA format.  This Powerpoint file on APA gives a brief overview.