Planning Your Career

By Warren W. Jones and Natalie Macris

(Note: This article is adapted from A Career Worth Planning: Starting Out and Moving Ahead in the Planning Profession, by Warren W. Jones and Natalie Macris, copyright 2000 by the American Planning Association.

If you have just begun your career in planning and have been working for a couple of years (or more), whether for a public agency, private firm, or nonprofit organization, it might be time for you to plan, redirect, or restart your career. Making a career plan goes hand in hand with the process of taking stock and improving yourself. In this essay we do not suggest a model for everyone to adopt and follow, since that is up to you. But, we do suggest things that you can do to help yourself along as you ponder moving onward and upward.

Taking Stock

Making a career plan begins with noting the following:

• Your Skills. What are your skills and what do you most prefer doing?
• Your Likes and Dislikes. Here we are referring to the things you like to do — or now think you might like to do — versus the things you avoid for whatever reasons, and the things that just don't describe who you are and what you will want to do in the future.
• Your Strengths. Putting aside for a moment your likes and dislikes as you now know them, since tastes change over time, what are your real strengths as a person and as a professional?
• Your Work Style. All of these skills, strengths, likes and dislikes usually translate into a personal working style and a working environment that you prefer. Are you someone who likes the security of staying with one employer for a long time, possibly until retirement? Or are you the restless type who likes to move from the public to the private sector, consult and then teach, or do both at once, and so on?
• What You Still Need to Know. What skills do you want to improve on to accomplish your goals, to advance, or to survive in your chosen job or career?

Your Current Job

Next, try to define what you like and don't like about your current job. Does the job satisfy you? If you were to acquire new skills to do your job better, what would they be? What would you gain by having these new skills? Do you want to have them? What types of jobs would they logically lead to?

This exercise should help you decide whether you ought to stay with your current employer. If the answer appears to be "no" (or even "maybe"), your next step is to explore jobs and career directions you're really interested in.

Exploring New Directions

You may not know exactly what you're looking for yet; in fact, you may only have the smallest inkling of how your skills might correspond with a new job or speciality. What's important is to get out and about, through any or all of the means listed below.

• Going to Conferences. If you don't know where you want to work next, conferences give you a chance to hear what others are doing, and think about how your skills might match up with a new job or specialty. If you already have some ideas for your next step, you can make useful contacts.
• Informational Interviews. Many people will be flattered that you are interested in the work they do. Set up appointments with them to learn about their jobs and what they did to get themselves to the place where they are now.
• Seeking Out a Mentor. There may be one person, or a handful of people, who represent a career ideal for you, or who are especially helpful in providing you with direction. See if they are willing to have you check in with them from time to time for guidance, support, brainstorming, and so on.
• Seeking Out a Headhunter. If you have a clear idea of the type of work you want to be doing, a headhunter might be able to lead you directly to it, or have new possibilities that never would have occurred to you.
• Volunteering. If you identify a place where you think you might like to work, see if you can get a volunteer (or even part-time paid) position there. This will give you a chance to get to know the organization and the work they do, and decide if it's for you.
• Continuing Your Education. Taking a class in a subject you're interested in allows you to find out more about it without giving up your present job and diving into something new that might not be right for you after all.
• Self-Education. Learn as much as you can about yourself and the career directions and jobs that interest you. This may mean reading lots of current affairs newsmagazines, subscribing to community or special-interest newsletters, reading books, or visiting with people at the coffee shop in the community where you want to work.
• Seeking Career Counseling. Many career counseling services offer diagnostic tests, resume critiques, job-finding services, networking opportunities, and so on. A possible downside of this approach: most career counselors are not especially familiar with the planning profession, and therefore may not fully understand the skills you offer and the type of work you are seeking. Nonetheless, you may find some value in the more general services these places provide.
• Sabbaticals/Travel. Your current employer might be willing to grant you a sabbatical, during which you work somewhere else and return with knowledge useful to your organization. This might give you a fresh perspective, or an opportunity to learn about a job that interests you without quitting your current one.

Alternatively, if your personal and financial circumstances allow, you might take a more free-form "sabbatical," by traveling or otherwise taking time off with less of a stated purpose in mind. Who knows, you might discover that planning is not for you (and being a gourmet chef, marine biologist, or stand-up comedian is) — or you might recommit to planning with a vengeance and a new sense of purpose.

Be aware that career planning, like the other forms of planning with which you are familiar, does not usually produce instant results. Delays, uncertainties, and slow, small changes are much more typical. While you are in the "treading water" stage, share your thoughts with colleagues and friends, focus on developing your skills, and above all, try to keep your sense of humor and perspective.

Warren W. Jones is CEO of Solano Press Books, a publisher of professional books on contemporary planning practice, planning law, and methods of environmental analysis and review. Natalie Macris is a San Francisco-based urban and environmental planner, writer, and editor.