Humans are fascinated with time. We love birthdays, anniversaries and regular holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. We also recognize the value of annual physicals at the doctor's office, and that annual performance reviews are a fact of working life. To a large extent, these types of events punctuate our lives.
Far too many IT professionals, however, don't do the same for their own personal IT career development and planning. That's a shame, because annual self-assessment and career planning would help them set a course for their professional lives. They could then track their progress, adjust their courses and respond to changing circumstances with forethought and deliberation.
Therefore, let's explore how an annual career checkup might work. To begin with, it's hard to assess progress and capabilities without a set of goals. Those who tackle this process for the first time must develop a set of goals and objectives. Individuals who continue this process can compare last year's accomplishments to their corresponding goals and objectives to assess progress before they develop a new set for the year ahead.
It's typical for aspiring IT professionals to establish goals in multiple categories when planning their IT careers. Thus, most people tend to develop goals and objectives across so
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me or all of these areas:
When setting goals or establishing objectives, it's important to possess a desire for improvement and development with a realistic idea of what you can actually accomplish in one year. Most items on such lists must be accomplished above and beyond regular work activities -- in addition to other demands on your time outside of work. Be as honest as you can about how much time, money and effort you can devote to career development, and you'll have a much better sense of what you can accomplish from one year to the next.
It's also important to understand that even though most planning and assessment focuses on years immediately past and ahead, you should take a longer-term view of progress in some or all of these categories as well. A broader time horizon simply stretches the view ahead, and while it makes goals and objectives a bit more uncertain and more likely to change, it does help provide some valuable long-term continuity in stringing sets of plans together year after year.
Ed Tittel is a freelance writer who specializes in information security, IT certification and markup languages. He created the Exam Cram series, has contributed to more than 130 computer books and writes regularly for numerous TechTarget Web sites. Email Tittel at etittel@techtarget.com.
