Career Strategy Outline
DEVELOPING A PERSONAL CAREER STRATEGY (PCS)
Smeal MBA Career Management and Corporate Relations Team
9th Edition
May, 2010
Developing a Personal Career Strategy (PCS)
Companies no longer hire people out of high school or college and provide them with career security for the rest of their life. In some ways, career management has become an independent enterprise, something of a sole proprietorship, or as a recent book reflected in its title, “You Incorporated”. This trend is a clear indication that you must take full responsibility for your life-long career success and satisfaction. Thus, as with any successful business, individual career management should follow the same process that successful organizations use in creating their business plans.
Through various processes, successful organizations create strategic plans that provide a long-term vision of who they want to become. Subsequently, they specify goals and related objectives that, over time, will incrementally take them toward the realization of their vision. In this process, organizations analyze the realism of their vision, goals and objectives through a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis is a very deliberate assessment of the organization (internal) and the market (external) to identify internal and external Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This process enables the organization to fine-tune their vision, goals, and objectives, as well as develop their strategic plans for achieving its vision, by capitalizing on the internal and external strengths and opportunities, while also attempting to mitigate internal and external weaknesses and threats. This same process has become the paradigm for successful career management.
While entire books have been written on the topics of career development and career management, the Smeal MBA Career Services Team (SMCS) has developed this abbreviated version to assist you in developing a personally-defined career management
Smeal MBA Career Management and Corporate Relations Team
9th Edition
May, 2010
Developing a Personal Career Strategy (PCS)
Companies no longer hire people out of high school or college and provide them with career security for the rest of their life. In some ways, career management has become an independent enterprise, something of a sole proprietorship, or as a recent book reflected in its title, “You Incorporated”. This trend is a clear indication that you must take full responsibility for your life-long career success and satisfaction. Thus, as with any successful business, individual career management should follow the same process that successful organizations use in creating their business plans.
Through various processes, successful organizations create strategic plans that provide a long-term vision of who they want to become. Subsequently, they specify goals and related objectives that, over time, will incrementally take them toward the realization of their vision. In this process, organizations analyze the realism of their vision, goals and objectives through a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis is a very deliberate assessment of the organization (internal) and the market (external) to identify internal and external Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This process enables the organization to fine-tune their vision, goals, and objectives, as well as develop their strategic plans for achieving its vision, by capitalizing on the internal and external strengths and opportunities, while also attempting to mitigate internal and external weaknesses and threats. This same process has become the paradigm for successful career management.
While entire books have been written on the topics of career development and career management, the Smeal MBA Career Services Team (SMCS) has developed this abbreviated version to assist you in developing a personally-defined career management