Career planning can help you meet your goals, but remember, things change.
Personal career planning is like a street map - you have to know where you're going if you want to get there. But it's difficult to map out a career path when the technology job market landscape changes as fast as it does.
"It's good to have a career plan," says Lynn Berger, a personal coach in New York. "It's good to write it down, because when you write it down, it's more likely to happen. But you have to be fluid and flexible - life changes."
Berger, who counts 20 to 30 percent of her clients as technology professionals, doesn't advise people to put together long-term career plans. Instead, she has her clients come up with a short list of personal and professionals goals for the next three months, then revise and adapt the list over time.
"I'm not one who does five- and 10-year goals," she says. "It's very hard to set those goals because things change so much. God knows where the [technology] industry is going to be in 10 years."
Explore your values
Before you tap out a list of goals on your keyboard, you need to do some soul searching, Berger says. She recommends that you sit down with a career counselor, a mentor, or some other unbiased observer, and talk about what you want from life. Don't use a spouse or friend to help evaluate your career, she says, because they can project their expectations of you into the process.
Pick a person who'll continue to be available to you, and who you'll feel accountable to. The goal is to have a continuing dialog about your career goals and whether you're accomplishing the steps you've mapped out.
When Berger starts talking to a client about a career plan, she first asks about values: What kind of work do you want to do? What technologies do you want to work with? What are your financial goals? What's important in your personal life?
Berger looks for concrete goals that her client feels strongly about. Stay away from the "I'd kind of like to" goals. "Sometimes, people set goals, and they don't achieve them," she says. "It's really no magic - when people set goals that are meaningful to them, they tend to achieve them quicker."
From there, Berger and her client can start to come up with a series of goals and an action plan to achieve those goals. If a personal goal is to spend more time with friends, maybe you need to get out of the office by 6 p.m. on Fridays.
Berger often recommends three personal goals and three professional goals - along with their all-important action plans - for a short-term career plan. If after three months you've made steps toward those goals, and they're still important, keep them on the list. If not, create some new goals.
Close the gaps; share your knowledge
A common goal among tech professionals is to rise in the company ranks. Berger often examines three issues with these clients:
Goals need to be realistic, but ambitious. Berger sees clients on both ends of the spectrum - those who are disappointed when they haven't realised their Grand Plans by age 25, and those who don't have enough faith in themselves to rise farther than their current positions. In both cases, self-assessment assisted by a career counselor can help a person create reasonable goals, she recommends.
"There are certain people who go through life and are trying to reach their maximum potential, and there are some people who are satisfied with less," she says. "A lot of people feel, 'I can't ever be vice president.' Sure you can."
