Welcome to this 5th episode in a small series I’ve called: “Professional Development - Job Hunting and Your CV”.

In the previous episode, I talked about how to use all the work you have to do anyway for your annual performance review to fuel your own work on your career development. You can find that episode at www.barbarakandersen.com/15.

In today’s episode, I want you to take a longer view of your career. You could say that we’re going to have a look into the crystal ball! Because I want to invite you to think about what your CV will look like in 10 years.

Where will you be? And what do you want your CV to look like? What do you want it to reflect about your professional life?

Are you a planner? Or do you prefer to wait and see what happens?

I’ve noticed three different ways of approaching career planning:

1. There is no plan - one day simply follows the other. You show up, do your job and hope for the best. Actually – there is no plan here.
2. You have a clear plan and vision for your career. First this kind of job, then that kind of job. Always preparing for the next step
3. You have dreams, but there’s no clear plan. Apart from your education, you probably haven’t taken major action to drive yourself toward a clearly defined goal. It feels more like you have navigated the flow and the possibilities that showed up.

In my experience, the last group is the biggest one.

And this was also my path for many years. I always felt lucky when I got a job. Then I worked hard to do that job as well as I could. I realised what I liked and didn’t like about it. But I was very much flowing with the opportunities that showed up. I can see now that I was more reactive than proactive in my career back then.

Maybe you recognize this scenario?
You got the job. You learned to do the job. Learned from the job. Settled in. Got comfortable with the job. Then, slowly you got a bit tired of the job or the content of the job - or the general setting you were in.

Slowly you started to think about “what else?” What could be interesting? Where could I go?

So, maybe you don’t really have a plan.
But the truth is that if you dare ask yourself, there are things that you’d like to see happen for yourself.

Maybe you’ve had that question in a job interview: “Where do you see yourself five years from now?” Was it easy to respond to? And have you acted on it?

Many of us hope that opportunities will show up. However, experience has shown me that hope is not really a strategy.

I don’t believe we can decide or predict exactly what will happen five or 10 years from now. But we can envision what we’d like our professional life to look like. And we can take action to move in that direction.

Is there a 4th way?
So, your CV is essentially a shorthand version of your career. Is that something that is happening to you? Or are you setting the direction?

Are you proactive or reactive?

If you want to become more proactive, that doesn’t mean that you have to – or should - plan everything in great detail. Not at all, actually. But the first essential step is to become aware of what direction you want to go in.
Read the full show notes at www.barbarakandersen.com/16.