How to elaborate personal development plan

You have already started searching for a job, but are you sure that you have a

good plan? If you think your career is important to you, it is better to define

a career strategy from the beginning to achieve your professional goals. We will

try to give you some advice related to:

• Skills and competences
• Job Options
• Job applications: CV, covering letters
• Action planning

Identify your transferable skills

Firstly, it is convenient to identify your skills and the skills that employers

are looking for their positions. Normally, recruiters are searching for concrete

profiles of people among the candidates they have. These profiles are based on

the skills portrait that it should be reflected on your CV, mainly these skills

that are transferable, it means, relevant for that job position.

Examples of transferable skills are:

• Team working
• Communication
• Problem solving
• Information handling
• Numeric skills
• Information technology
• Business awareness

Give evidence of your competences

It is not enough to say that you are good at managing difficult situations or

working under pressure. You have also to break these skills down by providing

examples of situations to demonstrate these competences. It can be useful to

have these examples in mind for future interviews:

• Description of the situation
• Action: your personal contribution
• Result: what to do you achieve

Researching and gathering information

Researching occupations is a key part of your career planning. The main issues

are:

• Why do you prefer a concrete occupation?
• What education, training and skills are needed?
• What are the salary and benefits like in this occupation?
• How are the working conditions?
• What are the possibilities to develop and growth there?

As a starting point, you can focus your search on a concrete sector or company

you would prefer to work in, and check the conditions and opportunities you

would find.

Analyzing the positions

The following questions are important to be answered about each position you

might consider:

• What can you offer to that position? Remember your skills profile
• Why do you want that job? Your main motivation
• Which will be your contribution to that position? Give examples of what

  you would do. You can refer to your competences here

• What kind of training do you consider would you benefit the most?

  Identify your weaknesses to improve your skills