• How can I ensure I’m taking a strategic approach to building my skills and developing my career?
• Where do I need to focus my efforts to get noticed and stand out from the crowd?
• How can I best communicate my skills and accomplishments to my current and potential employers?

Whether you stay with your first employer your entire career or find other employment, proper planning benefits both you and the organization you serve.  When it comes to gaining this kind of forward-looking perspective, there's no substitute for developing your own personal career plan.

A personal career plan (PCP) is a formal document that contains guidelines for providing purpose and direction to your career. In addition to guiding your future, your PCP helps you to decide how to allocate your personal resources over a given period of time. The time horizon of a plan varies according to the needs of the individual, but the typical time frame is one year. As you might imagine, very few people take the time to write down a formal plan, so it's one major way to get a jump on your competition.