Taking Control of Your Professional Development

Perhaps, when you started your career, your employer provided you with professional development. You participated in job shadowing, stretch assignments, and coaching, and maybe your employer paid your tuition for a certification or advanced degree.

Company-sponsored professional development programs can be great, however, it’s up to you to take advantage of them and to pursue others. Let’s face it, you need to stay on top of emerging trends, skills, and best practices in your field to be a solid candidate for a promotion, job search, career change, or new role.

Some benefits of investing in your professional development are:

● Staying up to date with industry and technology trends.

● Expanding your network by building relationships with instructors and participants.

● Increasing your sense of competency and job fulfillment.

● Modeling your commitment to continuous learning to your peers and team.

● Positioning yourself as an expert in your field.

● Gaining recognition as someone who is prepared for new professional challenges.

If you are wondering how to own your professional development, keep reading because that’s what we will discuss next.

Getting Started: Strengths

Your first step is to assess your strengths and what you do well. Start with your performance reviews. Ask yourself “What I am good at?”. Review your results from tools such as CliftonStrengths, DISC, Gallup’s Strengths-Finder, and Enneagram among others. Request feedback from people you trust.

Now that you have confirmed what you do well, it’s time to look at what you could still improve.

Getting Started: Development Areas

Identifying these may seem easier because they are what we tend to focus on yet, at the executive level, chances are that not many people feel comfortable pointing them out to you. If your company sponsored a 360° assessment, you will have valuable information. If not, you may want to look at those performance reviews and assessments again. If you are already working with a coach, they will be a good resource to get an honest external perspective on what you still need to develop.

Moving Forward: Deciding Your Focus

You can’t possibly address all your needs at once and still succeed in your current role so you need to prioritize. Let’s keep in mind that you may still be participating in company-sponsored professional development and training programs and those entail time commitments.

One way to select where you will start is to research the requirements of roles that interest you whether in or outside of your current organization. Be open to roles available anywhere since you are not conducting a job search, but, rather, you are identifying what the market demands to compare it with your qualifications and decide which ones you would need to develop IF you were going to apply for those roles.

Another way is to search for other professionals on LinkedIn who are already in your ideal roles, or similar roles to yours, to see what skills and knowledge they have as well as what training and certifications they’ve completed.

Next Steps

After you have identified your priorities, then you need to put together a realistic plan to address them. Start with the specific goal that you want to achieve and then drill down to what you will do, where will you do it, who will support you, and when you will complete it. Hint: There’s more to professional development than training.

Consider the following learning activities as you craft your plan:

● Internships

● Cross-trainings

● Temporary assignments

● Speaker forums

● Job rotations

● Task forces

● International assignments

Complement them with:

● Online discussion forums

● Podcasts

● Blogs

● Document reviews

● External coaching

Many online programs for degrees and certifications are designed based on the needs of professionals, like you, who need to update their knowledge or fulfill a requirement.

But, wait—Before you hurry to enroll in any program, consider what value it will add to your career because, most programs that grant you a degree, such as an MBA, demand significant commitments of time and financial resources. You want to make the best possible use of both.

Certifications and micro-credentials allow you to gain and demonstrate expertise in a specific area, usually, in less time than completing a degree. Always look for programs accredited organizations offer to increase the likelihood of an employer recognizing what you have completed as valid.

In closing, we will suggest some options for you to find professional development opportunities.

Let’s start by looking at some low-cost online sources. These include:

● Udemy – Offers 200K+ online courses and certifications on its platform.

● Coursera – Has 7K+ courses from leading universities and companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Yale on mobile and desktop formats. They also have free online courses on general interest topics.

● LinkedIn Learning – With 16K+ courses, tutorials, learning paths, and certifications, you also receive personalized recommendations based on your interests and skills. You can add those courses to your LinkedIn profile.

Professional and membership organizations provide industry-specific online and in-person choices. Some examples are:

● Project Management Institute (PMI)

● Association for Talent Development (ATD)

● Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM)

● American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)

● International Association of Business Communicators (IABC)

● International Coaching Federation (ICF)

● American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA)

● National Restaurant Association (NRA)

● American Nurses Association (ANA)

● American Marketing Association

● National Association of Sales Professionals (NASP)

● National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)

● CompTIA Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP)

● Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

● International Association of Computer Science and Information Technology (IACSIT)

● Information Systems Security Association (ISSA)

In addition, your local and regional business, industry, and commerce organizations also hold conferences that often include professional development and networking opportunities.

The choice to own your professional development is yours. Start today!

Interested in working with one of our talented coaches at D&S Executive Career Management to help advance your career?

Schedule a call to learn more and take the first step toward achieving your professional goals.

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