Soft Skills

Career Planning
part 2
• Opportunities Catch Hold of Opportunities
Opportunity comes but once. So, whenever you get
any opportunity to prove yourself and get into your
desired career, try to convert it in every way for suiting
your purpose. Remember, a successful professional is
also quite opportunistic in his moves, examining every
opening to turn to his favour
• Find a mentor. If possible and your company offers this
facility, find a mentor. A mentor can help you in
obtaining essential knowledge and information that
will enable you to quickly learn what is required in your
job, and help you succeed. A mentorship program
forms important relationships with those that can help
in your career progression.
• Training. Keeping up to date with training is essential
particularly in the highly competitive and every
changing mining industry. Take advantage of any
opportunities for training that come your way.
• Succession Planning. Succession planning is a
process where employees are recruited, trained
and developed to fill each key position within a
company. Actively pursuing succession planning
opportunities will ensure you are constantly
developing and progressing in your career.
• Transfers and lateral moves. Should you feel you
are stagnating in your current role, and that there
is little chance for progression, ask for a transfer,
even if it is lateral move, if it means you will gain
wider and broader experience.
 Different Dimensions in career
Planning
1. Career practices
• Supportive and developmental career practices are a first
important factor in career management. Due to the
changing nature of contemporary careers, organizations are
required to move away from the traditional top down view
on career planning, with practices such as career ladders
and promotion paths, towards more supportive and
developmental practices. These practices include
inducements to developmental initiatives and possibilities
for internal promotion. Career studies have shown that
employees who perceive that their employer invests in
their career development, report higher levels of
organizational commitment, an individual attitude that is
considered important for explaining organization-level
outcomes.
2. Development I-Deals
• The growing need for flexibility in careers also
requires more flexibility in organizational career
policies. Employees are becoming more proactive
in redesigning their jobs to align them more with
their own competencies, motives and passions.
This can be achieved by so-called I-deals,
personalized agreements between individual
employees and employers. Development I-deals,
with regard to career development, can be
important tools for creating more flexibility in the
organization, for example by offering extra
learning opportunities and deviating career steps.
This way the individual career needs can be
aligned with the organizational needs in a
flexible and individual way, instead of sticking
to an organizational system based on long-
term predictability and a “one size fits all”
approach. Studies have pointed out positive
outcomes of investing in I-deals on both the
individual and the organizational level, such as
expected retirement age and affective
commitment to the organization.