Many students never give a thought beyond graduation to consider what their future career opportunities might be. Continuing to grow your skills and experience should still be a top priority to help you obtain value from and add value to your career. Career growth takes some consideration and planning.
What Are Some Tips For Professional Growth While In College?
Learn all you can, wherever you are! You never know what the future may hold, and the knowledge you gain today may be crucial tomorrow. Here are some things you can do to learn more and grow professionally so that you are able to land your ideal job, post-graduation:
- Find someone in the field you are interested in and ask them to let you shadow them on the job. Taking this step can broaden your skills and increase your knowledge about what a career in this area might entail.
- Attend classes and webinars to learn about strategies and technologies and stay updated on the industry.
- Seek a mentor. Gleaning from someone else’s experience is a great way to gain knowledge and introduce yourself to fresh opportunities as they arise.
How Can You Create A Career Growth Plan?
In addition to expanding your knowledge about your field of choice, you may want to take the proactive step of creating an established plan to help you stay on track once you enter the workforce. A career growth plan can look like this:
- Set goals and create a plan to achieve them. People who are the most successful and satisfied in their careers have proactively determined what they want from work. Without a plan, you have no direction to focus on and no benchmark to use to measure your progress.
- Sit down with your mentor and establish a workable timeline, along with reasonable milestones. Sponsorship/mentoring will ensure that you have support to help you manage your career.
- Plan on pursuing continuing education wherever it is available. Many companies have educational programs to help employees develop their careers, while others offer educational reimbursement arrangements. If this is not available at the company you choose, you may need to pursue your career development informally.
- Take ownership of your career growth. Discuss your career path during future reviews, or schedule meetings to meet with leadership for this purpose. You may end up working for a company that demonstrates a deep commitment to its employees by assisting where possible, but you may not. It is vital to remember that it is your career path; own it!
Here at Maistro Mentor, we’re committed to helping you make the best choices for your career future. We offer support and resources to help companies and individuals be the best they can be. From mentoring and work systems to education and marketing expertise, we’ve got you covered.