Step Five: Creating a Career Action Plan
Step One: Learn About Yourself
Step Two: Investigate the World of Work
Step Three: Use What You Have Learned
Step Five: Find the Right Job
Step Five: Find the Right Job CCPG_107-110 
A Career Action Plan allows you to list your goals and the necessary steps it will take to achieve those goals. It is particularly useful because it helps you define your career choice and reminds you to be flexible when you experience challenges and transitions.
In order to create your personalized Career Action Plan, you want to use the information you have collected and placed in your Career Planning Folder. The collection of self-assessments, your research from the world or work, your completed Summary worksheets from Steps 1-4, and any other information you have gathered along the way can all be used to help you make decisions for your future.
Helpful Hint: This could be a good time to seek the assistance of a Professional Career Counselor or your School Guidance Counselor to help you lay out the details of your action plan.
The question is: “What goal(s) do I want to achieve?” Possible answers could be: I want to further my education, get a part-time or full-time job, get additional experience from volunteer, internship, or apprenticeship work, or I want to start my own business.These examples are just a few of the areas your Career Action Plan can cover. When completing a Career Action Plan, you will find it useful to have short and long-term goals.
When selecting your short and long-term goals, it’s recommended your goals be:
- Conceivable: you can put them into words
- Achievable: you have the skills, energy, and time to accomplish them
- Believable: you believe in them
- Attainable: you can state how long it will take to reach them
- Flexible: you are willing to modify them as necessary.
Helpful Hint: Short-term goals can be reached in one to three years. Long-term goals can take about three to five years. Use these time frames to clarify your goals; this will make it easier to follow your plan.
For many people, defining and selecting goals is easier and more fulfilling when they can create a visual representation of their future. If this appeals to you, take the time to draw, color, or design what your future goals look like. Once you have completed this task, you can review your designed goals by listing the potential steps necessary to achieve them. Doing this second task will allow you to clarify your short and long-term goals that reflect your visually drawn future.
Your listed short and long-term goals will give you the starting point from which to move next. Examples: you may need to enroll in school, apply for internships, take entrance exams, apply for employment, or start a trade program in your area of interest. Whatever your next step may be, a well thought-out Career Action Plan will prove to be a very useful tool to complete, revisit, and revise as necessary.
Career Action Plan Worksheet CCPG_109
