Think about where you would like your career to take you and the skill profile of people in those positions.
In order to move forward and advance in your career, you must control your own learning program and take immediate action. Start now and plan on future continuous career learning.
“There is an increasing importance of talent development in the corporate environment,” notes Tom McNeil, President of Executive resource company MDL Partners. “A recent survey of CEOs indicated that talent development was typically a top three priority for their company. At the same time, companies are having difficulty meeting specific professional staffing needs and have significantly cut training budgets, pushed community colleges to step up their technical training programs, and asked the government to increase STEM and programming training programs in the public schools.”
While you’re waiting for corporate training departments to get re-funded, higher education to reform itself and federal and state governments to develop education programs that send out qualified engineers and programmers, it makes eminent sense to take personal charge and look at your own personal training plan.
MDL Partners recommends adopting the following strategy:
- Ask yourself, how many “firsts” did I experience this week? Are you actively learning something new, how much time have you devoted in the last weeks and months to skill development?
- Think about where you would like your career to take you and the skill profile of people in positions you aspire to.
- Keep an eye on the shorter-term market. Think carefully about what you need to learn to stay marketable in the markets relevant to your career.
- Set up a short, intermediate and longer-term learning strategy.
- Focus on challenging, skill-building assignments, especially those that are a bit uncomfortable and risky.
- Develop a training plan which might include classroom training, online education (Corsera, EdX, Khan Academy or thousands of others), joining professional associations or forming a learning group.
MDL Partners works with clients to stand out from the crowd, achieve their career goals and to broaden and deepen their network. There are plenty of times in your career that you will use MDL Partner’s services – and once you are a client, you are a client throughout your entire career. MDL Partners works with clients on their immediate needs today, with an eye towards the future.