4 Easy Ways To Self Check Your Career Development

Career development often is a gradual journey where you climb each rung of the corporate ladder, one at a time. It isn’t all about the promotions you earn. Career development involves salary increases, upskilling yourself, expanding your knowledge, and increasing your ability to take on more responsibility. If you are a freelancer or an entrepreneur, your career development will take outside of an organization, and won’t involve promotions.

If you are focused on career development, you should take time to regularly check your career development status. As you dedicate your days to improving yourself and challenging yourself, you must make sure that you are truly getting closer to achieving your career goals according to your career plan.

The best way to know whether you are on the right track career-wise or if you are in the right environment for your career aspirations is to perform a self-assessment of your career development. Here are 5 straightforward ways you can do it:

1.Determine your position in the organizational chart

Your company will have an organizational chart that indicates where each company position is located in the organizational hierarchy. Find where your position is and identify the path you must take for career progression within the company.

Ensure that your position is well-defined so that you can completely understand the importance of your role to the organization. When you follow the organizational chart, you would realize that the position immediately above you is the most realistic next step of your career development. Make this position your short-term career goal and label those above it as your long-term goals. If you are unable to access the organizational chart, ask your supervisor. This would give you a chance to open up a conversation about career development with your manager.

2.Once you identify your career path, discuss it with your manager

You can only learn so much from the organizational chart. Before you set your career development ideas in stone, speak to your manager about them. Your manager will most of the time hold supreme authority over your promotions and recognition. It’s always wise to be on good terms with the manager when you are planning for a promotion.

Your manager will tell you the qualifications you must have and the other criteria you must fulfill before they give you a promotion. They will guide you to plan out your career development pathway and teach you what you must have to reach each milestone.

3.Honestly assess your skills, strengths, and weaknesses

Your manager will discuss the skills and qualifications you need for career development. Then, you can determine the skills you need to acquire and the qualifications that you already possess. Once you identify these, you can do an unbiased self-check of your skills, strengths, and weaknesses to see how far you are from achieving your career goals.

When you identify the areas you lack in, you can find training opportunities to upskill yourself. Choose your options wisely so as to not affect your performance at work. Enroll in the necessary training courses right away so that you can fast-track your career development.

4.Quantify whenever possible to better assess your career development

Measurable standards such as KPIs will help your quantify your career development. You can use the annual performance review data or monthly KPIs to deduce your performance within the organization. The metrics will tell you which areas you perform the best at and which areas you need to improve to achieve the company standard. Your manager’s performance evaluation of you will give valuable insight into your readiness to take on more responsibility.