Do a career self-assessment, says recruitment consultant Ben Byram

A rewarding career requires careful management and constant evaluation, whether you have just started work or have reached managerial level. It is essential to monitor your career to be certain you are offering employers the best candidate available – you. That means keeping in touch with changes in the workplace and knowing what is necessary to keep your skills in demand.

An evaluation of your long-term career goal with a self-assessment of your knowledge, skills, abilities, accomplishments and experiences can be hugely beneficial. Identifying your strengths and your weaknesses will provide assurance that you are pursuing the right career path and defining your main skills set will allow you to begin the evaluation process.

It is worth considering your skills in terms of specific categories, such as: technical knowledge; industry knowledge; regional awareness (geographical locations worked in); commercial skills, including accounting, budgeting and languages; and managerial skills, such as business development, project and manpower management. This type of assessment should result in a clear profile of what you have to offer.

Establishing goals for your career path will provide you with direction and a way to measure your success, guiding your progress. Benchmarks in your plan are short-term, achievable sub-goals: plan these with a realistic timescale in mind. It is important to be practical when you set goals, taking into account the things that are most important to you and may play a part in decisions you are faced with during your career. Your goals should also address subjects such as professional achievement, earning potential, lifestyle desires and personal issues involving family, education and leisure.

Once you have defined your first benchmark, start planning the steps you need to take to get to it and at each benchmark, conduct another personal audit. You may find it helpful to create an annual plan each year between now and your long-term goal, which will assist in understanding how far you have come and what more you need to accomplish. Update your CV at every benchmark, as it is the document that best represents you as a professional.

Calculate which actions have the most importance to your long-term career goal and start executing these first. The more important the action to your long-term career goal, the higher the priority you should attach to it. Assess your progress and refine your career plan at each stage. Be flexible – if you need to make adjustments to your sub-goals based upon new information, then re-evaluate your plan.

In order to maintain lifelong learning you must address areas such as: self-awareness – knowledge of your strengths, skills, values and interests; self-promotion – identifying needs in the workplace and matching your own knowledge, strengths and skills to them; networking – being able to develop and make good use of contacts; negotiation – the ability to discuss and form an agreement to make decisions and solve problems; and political awareness – knowing how organisations function and how the power structures within them operate.

Remember that any meteoric changes take preparation and hard work. It is not enough to be ambitious: you must be focused on your own personal and professional development. The lessons and skills you learn on the path to accomplishing your goal can be as rewarding finally reaching it.

Original print headline - Workplace