The steps entailed in a Personal Development Plan can be summarized as follows:
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Assessing your academic and non-academic strengths and areas for improvement.
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Monitoring your recent progress against a set of personal and interpersonal ‘competency benchmarks’.
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Reflecting on your values and priorities and engaging in active decision-making with respect to the future.
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Identifying and pursuing opportunities for skills development both on and off campus.
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Documenting and interpreting your learning highlights, achievements and career-related activities.
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Setting goals and constructing an action plan for personal and academic development.
Personal Development Planning is entirely optional and you are not obliged to undertake all or any of the activities outlined above. However, these steps lay the groundwork for developing your career and prospects whilst at Royal Holloway. There are lots of careers help and general resources available to you; try to make the most of them.
It is often helpful to discuss learning, achievement and employment goals, as well as completed Personal Development Records, with someone else: if you are an undergraduate, your personal adviser or tutor; if you are a postgraduate, your research supervisor or director of graduate studies.
The first thing you should consider in creating your Personal Development Plan is the use of intelligent planning.
Before you move on to the next section however, you may find it useful to download and print our Personal Development Form and our Accomplishments, skills, values and contacts handout. You will then be able to fill them in either as you read or straight afterwards, whilst PDP is still fresh in your mind.
Download the Personal Development Record form here|
Download the Accomplishments, skills, values and contacts form here|
The first step is to establish your current strengths and weaknesses. You can try to identify your skills (as well as those you are lacking) by using one of the numerous skills audits available on the web (see right).
You can also download and complete one of the Word format audit-grids from the ‘Keeping a record’ section of this site, or look at your department’s skills matrix. The matrix should catalogue both the subject-specific and transferable skills that your degree gives you. You’ll find them in your student handbook.
Michael Arthur, an international expert on ‘intelligent’ career-planning, posits that there are three key elements in professional advancement, not just skills:
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Knowing-how: The skills, competencies and knowledge acquired through formal education and self-study as well as co-curricular activities and day-to-day or ‘on-the-job’ experience; the ability to identify opportunities for applying and enhancing these skills.
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Knowing-why: Understanding your own values, priorities, and motivations, as well as how much you identify with a particular academic or professional culture, and to use this understanding when making decisions.
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Knowing-whom: The networks of people you create in academic, professional and personal settings; the ability to capitalize on personal and institutional contacts in fostering skills-development and responding to new challenges, i.e. networking.
The qualities that Arthur calls knowing-how are the ones that skills audits and skills matrices like the ones mentioned above help you to measure. Your values and priorities – not just your skills – are also very important. The University of London Careers Service Sort*It site offers a range of interactive modules, including a values ranking exercise and a values ‘auction’.
Insofar as knowing-why also entails understanding why you would suit (or not suit) particular academic and professional environments, you might also find it helpful to consult a careers guidance website, such as Prospects, or speak to a Careers Consultant in the Careers Service|. Also consult our ‘Independent Research’ section.
The last thing to think about, when trying to ascertain ‘where you are now’, is who you know:
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What contacts do you maintain with family members, school and college friends, former and current colleagues, scholarly peers, social acquaintances and so on?
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How do you use those contacts in everyday life?
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Which of them would be best placed to assist you in a situation where you required specialist information, practical assistance, introductions, or help in choosing and securing job opportunities?
When you have some idea as to your current position, it is time to consider where exactly you want to be. How can you find your point C? And what can you do to get there? Go to ‘Independent Research’ for this.
You need to formulate and articulate the goals you want to work towards. Reflecting on your values and priorities may help you determine what some of those goals should be. You may have different goals and career paths in mind. At undergraduate level, having several different ideas is fine. Life is flexible and what you decide now doesn’t have to be set in stone – in fact, many people change careers mid-way. To help you come up with a shortlist of career paths, try the following:
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Sort*It also provides a range of modules dealing with careers related decision-making. You could also consult Mind Tools.
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Attend different Careers talks to give you a feel of a variety of different industries, as well as a ‘Which Career?’ workshop
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Think of ways in which your personal interests could be translated into a job
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Read some of the resources and publications in the Careers Centre, such as GET, which have testimonials from graduates who’ve done different things
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Visit careers websites such as Prospects, the University of London Careers, the Careers Service site and the Guardian careers site.
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Get work experience placements in different industries and companies as a way of finding out which one is best for you
Once you have a shortlist of goals, you need to establish what you can do to help you get there.
Think back to who you know: how might you use and expand your existing set of contacts to gain professional experience?
Think back to your know-how: which relevant skills do you lack, which skills you would like to enhance, and how you are going to go about acquiring or improving those skills? There are plenty of opportunities for personal and skills development at Royal Holloway:
Postgraduate students might also consider the Generic Skills Programme| and the Educational Development Centre| provisions.
When you have identified some of your goals for the short-, medium- and long-term, and generated a number of ideas as to how to go about attaining them, you may find it useful to start keeping a structured record of your thoughts, priorities, and action-plans.
Maintaining a record of the achievements, skills, values and contacts you identify in the course of your planning will help you:
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Keep track of the thoughts and ideas generated at each stage of the process
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Monitor your progress towards your goals
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Formulate information that may be used in CVs and job applications
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Single out topics for discussion with your personal adviser or equivalent
Of course, the record need not be a formal one. Sometimes it is enough to jot down a few lines in a notepad. Sometimes, on the other hand, you may feel it easier to use a structured proforma or questionnaire, and you will find links to downloadable skills audits produced by the Careers Service here.
Any of these documents might usefully form the basis for conversation with your personal adviser (or equivalent). However, you will gain most from Personal Development Planning if you complete the formal Personal Development Record and make regular attempts to update it.
Ideally, moreover, you should aim to discuss the contents of your Personal Development Record with your adviser once every academic year, even if you decide not to show him/her the Record itself.
You can also book a drop-in session with a Careers Consultant |