Chapter 1



Chapter 1The Personal Strategic PlanA n objective is an outcome you plan to achieve by a specified future date. To plan a career, you need specific and measurable objectives, and to achieve those objectives, you need a realistic strategic marketing plan. Whereas the focus of a marketing plan is the current business cycle; a strategic plan looks many business cycles into the future. Strategic marketing planning describes the range of management and operations activities required to create and sustain effective marketing strategies. A Personal Strategic Plan is a written document that outlines the time-related details for achieving an individual’s career objective. The strategic marketing planning process; long a feature of organizational development, first matches the organization's resources with the current and anticipated market and competitive situations, followed by structuring the entire marketing offer to achieve organizational success.3, 4 Its purpose is not only to have insight into past and current conditions but to enable organizations to anticipate change and prepare for it. Strategic marketing planning is still largely a tool of larger organizations, primarily businesses. Nevertheless, it can also be adapted for use by individuals, as a tool for career planning.Marketing is about identifying and meeting needs in a way that provides satisfaction. More specifically, it involves matching the career and employment needs of employees with the both the job-task completion requirements and the strategic human resource needs of employers.For example, in the world of work it involves matching the problem solving capabilities of employees with the problem solving needs of the organization. According to McCarthy and Perrault, a marketing plan is a document that outlines the time-related details for achieving an organization’s objectives.5 A Personal Strategic Plan is a written document that outlines the time-related details for achieving an individual’s career objective. Job versus Career FocusThe word Job refers to employment, usually to an organization, performing a designated routine, work task for specific compensation. Here the emphasis is on routine, and does not necessarily imply creativity, choice, or high intellectual input. A Job differs from a Career which involves employment of high levels of focused education and training to perform a body of non routine tasks, often involving many tasks, over a sustained time period. The result of this focused and sustained effort often leads to the designation of the career-tract individual as a “professional.” Job search and career development possesses somewhat similar attributes, and requirements. But there are also differences. For both, characteristics such as goodness of fit between the person’s skill-set, aptitudes, character and ethic, and the organization’s work requirements are important. Differences involve a short term focus when the work is to perform a job, compared to a long term focus with career development. Successful job performance requires that the employee be able to satisfy the specific job requirement, whereas successful career development requires congruence between the employee and employer’s strategic objectives. Successful job performance need not involve long term buy-in to the work relationship by either employee or employer, and does not necessarily lead to job satisfaction by the employee. However, a successful career requires both long term commitment to the career, and satisfaction by the employee. The Personal Strategic Plan enables the career-track individual both to document background information; e.g., education, employment, training, skills, and accomplishments, and strategically prepare to attain his or her career of choice.Personal Strategic Plan versus ResumeA Personal Strategic Plan is similar to a resume, but it is not a resume. The latter is a written document that lists your work experience, educational background, and skill-set, and is widely used to both screen new job applicants for employment, and an assessment tool for current employees. Unlike the resume which has both a historical perspective and a focus on the current specific task, the personal strategic plan is shaped by a person’s career or professional objectives, and includes the strategic activities needed to achieve the objectives. More specifically, a Personal Strategic Plan is an evolving, written, marketing-oriented document that connects an individual with his or her desired professional future. It is a future- and marketing-oriented document that allows for a dynamic environment, changed and changing professional and personal realities; e.g., human resource needs in the workplace, competition for premium jobs, job changes and advancement, new accomplishments, geographic relocations, market, industry and organizational changes, and skills enhancement, while focused on attainment of an individual’s career objective. Realistic career objectives are future-oriented and shaped by the person’s background, experiences, accomplishments and skill-sets. One marketing specialist asserts that…“…the employee of the future must be prepared, have a competitive skill-set, be technologically oriented, develop a mindset that embraces change, and be committed to continuous self-improvement. If you are not up to speed in product preparedness, you will miss the critical windows of opportunity to the premier jobs and careers.”6This implies that the employee of the future must through planning and preparation; equip themselves with the tools to effectively succeed in competitive, dynamic and changing markets, and human resources environments.Why You Need a Personal Strategic PlanThe Personal Strategic Plan helps to clearly demonstrate and communicate your value. This requires ensuring congruence between your planned career path, qualifications, and capabilities, and the strategic human resource needs of current or potential employers. Objective personal strategic planning enables you to identify and develop core competencies and competitive advantages, and carefully outline the steps to achieve your career objectives. A well crafted Personal Strategic Plan is of critical importance to both employee and employer. It allows management-track employees to plan and implement professional development activities, document professionally relevant background information, accomplishments, career objectives and achievement strategies, as well as demonstrate, and communicate analytical, critical thinking, and managerial skills; including writing, research, organization, planning, and presentation. This information is presented in the context of an increasingly dynamic and competitive human resources environment. Your Personal Strategic Plan is a way to assess and position yourself in the context of your personal career objective and the changing and competitive work environment. Current employers need to be aware of the employee’s career plans and expectations. They are interested in the individual’s educational and professional background as well as skills, values, experiences, traits, or aptitudes that can favorably or unfavorably influence work performance. In developing your Personal Strategic Plan, be aware that it is as much for yourself as it is for others who will be assessing you as a current or potential employee, and or an upwardly mobile rmation on your core competencies, accomplishments and capabilities in the context of your career objectives, as well as demonstrations of knowledge-based, organizational, planning, analytical and presentation skills, enable assessment of your fit in the organization. This information is essential to facilitate recruitment, retention and advancement of key individuals, and maintenance of high employee morale.Employee and Employer PerspectivesThe Personal Strategic Plan is as much for the preparer as it is for others who will be assessing him/her as a current or potential employee, and or an upwardly mobile executive. In order to ensure a career path that is congruent both with employee career and organizational human resource needs and expectations, employers must be aware of the employee’s career plans and expectations. As a result, there is strong organizational support for career planning actives by employees. Information on the employee’s (or potential employee’s) educational and professional background, core competencies, and personal limitations, accomplishments and capabilities in the context of the employee’s career objectives, as well as demonstrations of knowledge-based, organizational, planning, analytical, and presentation skills enable a more thorough assessment of the employee’s fit in the organization.Employee PerspectivesFrom the perspective of employees, the Personal Strategic Plan is both a repository of background information and an evolving document that is used along the employment continuum, from job seeking to career enhancement. Important features include: It is:written, shaped by objectives which are formed both by external and internal analyses,future- and market-oriented, and isan evolving document.More specifically, the Personal Strategic Plan; Outlines the time-related details for accomplishing the career objective.Is a repository of educational, training and employment information and accomplishments.Presents information that is both current and future oriented rather than historical and current.Provides relevant background and performance information (e.g., dollar contributions of the individual to the performance of the organization), and Facilitates effective cross-applicant comparisons.Thus, the Personal Strategic Plan is a way to introspectively and objectively assess and position you in the context of your personal career objective and the changing and competitive work environment. It presents a unique opportunity to demonstrate clarity of thought, and knowledge-based, organizational, planning, analytical and presentation skills.Employer PerspectivesIn order to ensure congruence between employee career needs and organizational human resource expectations, employers must be aware of the employee’s career plans and expectationsFrom the perspective of employers, the Personal Strategic Plan is a tool that enables management to assess employee in the context of current and long term work expectations. Also, the Personal Strategic Plan:Encourages strategic thinking by managerial personnel.Facilitates orderly, professional development planning and work assignments that are congruent with organizational needs, employee goals and skill-sets, and maintenance of high employee morale.Facilitates efficiency in recruitment of managerial personnel.Provides employees with a self-paced, personal development tool.Provides human resource professionals with tools for employee assessment and planning in the context of satisfying the dynamic and strategic human resource needs of the organization.7, 8The Personal Strategic Plan provides sufficient information to enable management to adequately assess the individual’s level of knowledge about the company, market, industry, and human resource environment, and to make assessment of their potential for success. The focus of Personal Strategic Planning is not ascending the first step of the career ladder, but climbing to the desired level of achievementTrends in Career PlanningGenerally, careerists, or persons seeking a career, are highly trained or educated professionals who pursue a particular occupational focus over the course of their work lives. Examples include teachers, engineers, accountants, physicians and architects. The focus of Personal Strategic Planning is not ascending the first step of the career ladder, but climbing to the desired level of achievement. Thus, one can become an accountant without ever becoming a Certified Professional Accountant and one can become a physician without attaining the status of specialist in Oncology or Tropical Medicine. The former is the entry level while the latter requires substantial, planning and effort to achieve.You are your most important product and you must remain ready and able to effectively market yourself as the solution to the organization’s human resource needs in a competitive and dynamically changing work environment. While most successful businesses require extensive job and career planning among management tract personnel, job and career planning among college students is scant. Very few students have long-term career goals or even short-term plans for getting a job. In undergraduate business programs throughout the nation, fewer than 40% of college juniors report having a current resume, and less than 15% report having looked beyond graduating from college and getting their first job. Job search efforts continue to be somewhat reactive. That is…“Gee! I will be graduating in three months. It’s time to begin the process of looking for a job.”9To best meet the human resource needs of and be valuable to current and potential employers, you must possess not only the right skill-sets, but also the right connections, aptitude, attitudes, and values that uniquely positions and differentiates you among others competing in the same job space.You are your most important product. And you are constantly competing with others for the premium jobs in the marketplace. Thus, to best meet the human resource needs of and be valuable to current and potential employers, you must possess not only the right skill-sets, but also the right connections, aptitude, attitudes, and values that uniquely positions and differentiates you among others competing in the same job space. Essentially, you must develop and portray a unique and distinct self-identity and brand image of yourself. The workplace is changing at an alarming rate, and this has never been more evident than during this period. During the first 11 months of 2008 the national economy fell into recession, and the labor market bled 1.9 million jobs, 533,000 of them in November. This economic downturn, and the frightening unemployment performance that it engendered, is forecasted to resonate into the near future.Correlates of this recession are business restructuring, worker realignment and other career impacting issues, including new roles and responsibilities for workers. For the numerous college students about to graduate, and hopefully, enter the job market, the bad news is; hiring is either stalled or declining. For employers and potential employers a buyers’ market will exist, way into the future. Due to the recent and continuing layoffs, and the large number of highly trained and motivated college graduates entering the workforce, there will be a wealth of talented applicants in search of a limited number of choice opportunities. The dynamics of change places a premium on preparedness, planning, education and training grounded in basic technological, communication, team and interpersonal skills. The need is no less critical for potential employees. Indeed, in a recent research study, executives perceive that:“… The Personal Strategic Plan provides a unique opportunity to enhance the assessment process and ensure strategic human resource congruence between potential employees’ career expectations and organization needs.”12More specifically, a Personal Strategic Plan will enable the individual to:Carefully assess, and establish a written inventory of his or her core competencies, personal limitations, accomplishments and capabilities in the context of his or her career objectives and the needs of current and potential employers.Assess the economic, industry, and human resource environment in the context of strategic opportunities and employment objectives. Develop effective strategies to reach targeted employers.Develop systematic, detailed action plans, which details steps to upgrade their competitiveness and prepare an individual to meet his or her career objectives.The benefits of the Personal Strategic Plan are that it…Requires the development and explicit statement of future career expectations.It contains an up to date record of previous educational, training and professional activities and accomplishments.Clearly outlines a strategy for achieving the individual’s career objectives.Presents the research designed to inform and educate the applicant about the market, community, industry characteristics, trends and expectations, and Clearly communicates the individual’s level of understanding of the market and industry, particular locale, and demonstrate his or her writing and analytical capabilities.Personal Strategic Plan ResearchWhen the resume and Personal Strategic Plan were compared in terms of their effectiveness as presentation formats either for career development or job advancement, the Personal Strategic Plan was more favorably assessed. Research findings by Duffus (2004) suggest that while undergraduate business students, human resource professionals, and business executives rate the Personal Strategic Plan favorable when compared to the traditional resume, only the latter favors use of the Personal Strategic Plan. For them, it is perceived as a more useful tool for job search, career development and career advancement. Both human resources professionals and business students rate the traditional resume more favorably than the Personal Strategic Plan in terms of their effectiveness as job screening tools. This means that the benefits of structure and brevity of the resume outweigh its perceived weaknesses when it is used as an interview securing, prescreening tool in the job acquisition process.13 Many likely reasons for this exist. Prominent among them are perceptions that: The resume adequately communicates necessary background information for first-job seekers and low-level employees with minimal job experience. The sheer complexity of the task of preparing the Personal Strategic Plan reduces the cost/benefit of preparing one both for lower level employees, and business students seeking to enter the job market. Many of these persons lack the vision, need-understanding and technical skills: e.g., research, writing, and presentation, to develop a good Personal Strategic Plan. Constructing, and in the case of human resource professionals, reviewing a Personal Strategic Plan is unnecessarily onerous in situations involving numerous lower level job applications.Nationally, human resource professionals process thousands of resumes each week. They perceive the Personal Strategic Plan as:More complex and substantially longer than the typical 1-2 page resume Less standardized than the traditional resume.Involving substantial additional work to review.Not cost effective for lower level job tasks.Excellent for upper level or executive track employees. Duffus’ research found that the Personal Strategic Plan was perceived as communicating nuanced information on individual characteristics that will position the individual as a potentially valuable employee, and advance him or her along the career continuum toward attainment of career objectives.7, 8 The research did not inquire whether human resource professionals would request the Personal Strategic Plan as an information presentation format for employment prescreening. In any event, the research implications are that respondents perceive the:Resume as adequate for routine and lower level job prescreening situations. Personal Strategic Plan as a more useful tool when dealing with upper level and upwardly mobile employees.Elements of the Personal Strategic PlanFigure 1-1 identifies the six major elements: Introduction, Analysis of External Environments, Analysis of Internal Environment, Career and Short Term Objectives, Marketing Strategy, and Action Program.IntroductionThe introduction presents a brief synopsis of the materials covered in the Personal Strategic Plan. Specifically, it presents a systematic layout of the plan structure; including career objectives, assessment of the current economic-work environment, and the time-related strategies and action plans along the career path. A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) Analysis is a useful exercise in strategic planning. In this analysis, Strengths and Weaknesses involve assessment of the internal traits, characteristics, and attitudes that gives rise to or impacts attainment of the identified goals and objectives. Opportunities and Threats focus on the external environments and their impact on informing the strategic objectives. External Environments: Preparing the External AnalysisThe External Analyses examines opportunities and threats that originate in the external environments. It sets the stage for conversion of threats into opportunities and facilitates selection of realistic and achievable objectives. The focus of the External Analysis section of the Personal Strategic Plan is on the socio-economic, legal, technological and cultural environments, as well as industry, market, human resources and organizational factors. Environments Economic – Describes the economic status of the community as well as economic and social trends. It examines the national, local, and where applicable, the organizational economy. The sequence reflects the reality that performance at the national level is often a correlate of performance at the local level, and both affect short and long-term opportunities. Cultural – The employee should review and anticipate cultural and structural issues that could affect hiring and advancement issues. One of the most important issues in this review is the organizational culture; e. g., managerial orientation of senior executive personnel, and anticipated changes in key executive positions. These can create challenges for upwardly mobile employees in addressing the issues of diverse managerial objectives, orientations and egos. Figure 1-1: Elements of the Personal Strategic PlanIntroductionPreparing Your External Analysis (Chapter 4)Preparing Your Internal Analysis (Chapter 5) Economic, Cultural, Social, Legal, Technological and Cultural EnvironmentsAccomplishmentsProfessional/Work ExperiencesThe Labor MarketHuman Resource Performance and TrendsIndustry Performance and TrendsEducation and TrainingOrganization Performance and TrendsCareer and Short-Term Objectives (Chapter 6)Other factors:Competencies, Skills, Work-ethic, Professional linkages/ Connections, Location Preferences, etc.Marketing Strategy (Chapter 7)Action Program (Chapter 7) Social – Management is concerned with social issues and trends within the organization and the external environment. Within the former, social interactions and personal values that are inconsistent with the configuration of values held by the work group may lead to ethical conflict. In the external environment, shifts in consumer preferences must be examined and addressed. Legal – Describes the legal constraints influencing employment decisions such as licenses, certifications, and so on. Technological – Describes the impact of new and emerging technologies on employment and career opportunities.Industry Performance and Trends – Identifies relevant organizations, key stakeholders and gatekeepers that define trends, practices and performances. This assessment is critical to development of a Personal Strategic Plan.The Labor Market – This defines the demand factors that influence the human resource needs, and ultimately, individual job and career needs. For example, persons interested in executive jobs/careers in tourism should be aware that tourism visitation, practices and opportunities influence both.Human Resource Performance and Trends – Industry and community employment practices, policies and trends, and their impact on the culture and performance of the organization. Organization Performance and Trends – Policies, strategies, practices, and performance. Particular emphasis should be on human resource policies and practices including hiring and retention, professional development and training, and opportunities for advancement. Internal Environments: Preparing the Internal AnalysisInternal Analysis is the assessment of the individual’s internal environments using the strengths (core competences) and weaknesses (personal limitations) framework. It involves identifying and promoting professionally enhancing competencies, minimizing or eliminating the professional impact of personal limitations, or where possible, converting limitations to competencies. The analysis will focus on specific issues such as values, work ethic, accomplishments, professional/work experiences, education and training, skills, professional linkages/connections, locational preferences, and other work-related experiences. Career and Short Term Objectives Career and Short Term Objectives explores development of long and short term objectives. It is informed by the personal mission of the individual as well as by the external and internal analyses. Marketing Strategy The marketing strategy provides a roadmap for accomplishing the preparer’s marketing – career objective. For any specified objective, the preparer may utilize various strategies. Thus, the marketing strategy specifies how resources will be deployed (e.g. tasks that will be completed) in order to achieve the objective.Action Program The marketing strategy is implemented through a series of discrete steps; each referred to as an Action Plan. The sum total of all Action Plans is the Action Program. ................
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